We truly believe that every business can make a global impact, and we work day by day to do so. We opened our Timber Garden Products company 29 years ago and have worked hard since to become the largest log cabin company in the UK.
However, we know too many people are not as lucky as we have been. According to the World Health Organization the lack of proper sanitation, better water or basic hygiene, that most of us take for granted, are still the main cause of death for 361,000 children aged under 5 each year.
This is the reason why in 2014, after ensuring Dunster House Ltd. was established and thriving, Managing Director Chris Murphy decided to open a Humanitarian Department within Dunster House HQ, dedicated solely to finding solutions to humanitarian crisicrises using our expertise, resources and knowledge of design and manufacturing.
Since then, we are working hard to try to make this world a safer and better place. In the past years, we have become one of the leading manufacturers of sanitation equipment for national and international charities, being an official supplier of major NGO’s as Oxfam. Our Squatting Plates and our different types of latrines are currently providing disaster relief to people around the world, while we continue to research and work close with different organizations to keep providing help to people in need.
Working for a change
In 2017 we successfully won long term agreements with Oxfam for Squatting Plates. Nowadays, products from our humanitarian range are present in countries from all around the world; including South Sudan, Central African Republic, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, Iraq,…
Along with our independent work, we also collaborate with the University of the West of England on the Pee Power Project; which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Following its successful launch at the UWE Bristol Student Union in March 2015, we took our Emergency Pissoir to Glastonbury for field test. The testing was a huge success and we were asked back in 2016 and 2017. The units turn urine into electricity to power phones, information screens and turn on lights. After the gap-year in 2018, we are already working on the new 2019 model, which will be back on this year’s edition.
However, this life-changing project is not the only one we are involved in; we are always working and researching to keep providing help to those who need it the most. We are working as consultants for Oxfam on a Urine Diversion System for Squatting Plates, and we are also their manufacturing partners for the pre-production Hand Washing Kit project, which is supported by the Humanitarian Innovation Fund and aims to fill the gap in emergency sanitation projects.
We are seeing our Humanitarian division excel and grow day by day and we are happy to help making this world a better place. Our aim is to design, create and supply a varied range of products that benefit both urban and rural communities of any size, as well as showing that every business can really make a global impact.
