2. Finding Safety
This is a story about a little girl in Africa. Bernadette is four years old. Here she is with her Mum. Bernadette lives in a tent as part of a camp for 100 families that was set up because fighting broke out in their home community and they had to run away. The camp keeps children like Bernadette safe.

3. Bernadette, her mum, and her two brothers and two sisters, live in a country called Central African Republic. It’s very tough to live in Central African Republic because there is a lot of poverty. Fighting keeps breaking out, which means schools have to close for months at a time. Many of the dads work away in diamond mines, leaving their families for months at a time. Many of the mums run small market stalls as a way of scraping a living, but of course, when fighting breaks out, they have to leave these behind, so they lose their income.

4. A Family Home Finding Safety
In the camp, the tents look like this. Five or so families live together in this single tent. There were no toilets or taps in the camp when it was first built, as the most important thing was to get the tents set up so families had shelter from the rain. Imagine what you would do if you couldn’t find a toilet at home? Where would you go? If you went to the toilet in the garden or in a field, what do you think the smell would be like? And what would you do if you didn’t have taps? Would you get water from puddles or streams or lakes? If the water was dirty, what would that do to your body?

5. Bernadette was very sick when she arrived at the camp, because she drank dirty water.

6. Cartwheels!
But although life in the camp is tough, the families work really hard to make life better for the children – and as soon as the fighting dies down and the armed men leave, the villagers work hard to get the school open again. And there’s even time for cartwheels!

7. A busy school
And here is the school inside – look how busy it is! All the pupils want to keep going to school because they know that getting an education is key to getting a job when they’re older.

8. Big smiles! Finding Safety
After school, this group of friends welcomed us to their home with big smiles!

9. Homework!
And before the light fades, it’s important to get your homework done! There is no electricity in the camp, so it’s impossible to do homework in the evening. You have to make the most of the daytime

10. Remember we talked at the start about water and toilets
Remember we talked at the start about water and toilets? Here is a group of helpers doing the daily water collection from a protected spring that is now providing the families with clean water. Would you like to do that every day?

11. We didn’t just make the water clean to drink
We didn’t just make the water clean to drink. We also built toilet blocks around the camp. Here’s Bernadette again – with her 15 year old sister Suzanne – and they’re standing in front of the new toilet block.

12. And here’s one of Bernadette’s friends, washing her hands at a brick pillar that has a big tub of water and a bar of soap. It’s so all the children, mums and dads can wash their hands after going to the toilet.

13. The children are now well enough to run around and play football.

14. Thank You!
We have so much to be grateful for. Isn’t it amazing how much a loo can change someone’s life?

15. PHOTOS: RALPH HODGSON/TOILET TWINNING & ADOBESTOCK