Another lovely testimonial demonstrating excellent diversity and inclusion practices in the corporate sector. We are so glad to be able to help companies like Sky provide an inclusive and welcoming environment for their employees. They have installed three WuduMate Compact units with soap dispensers
We love to see religious inclusion and that's what I found at Sky today.
As you know Muslims pray whilst at work, so Sky built an ablution room!
Using WuduMate, they have a dedicated wet room where Muslims can comfortably make wudhu, without making a mess in the bathrooms.
I love it when an employer REALLY acknowledges and supports their employees!
If you are planning a project of this nature, please take a look at our projects and our publication:
BT opened a new London Head Office, known as One Braham in November 2021, housing around 3,500 employees.
We were delighted to see this photo and testimonial on LinkedIn from Nuzhah Miah, who had occasion to visit the building recently. She took the photo below and had this to say about her experience:
"The office has very impressive amenities, but I was pleasantly surprised with the prayer space in particular.
In my experience female prayer spaces have often felt like an afterthought. However at One Braham I was able to comfortably remove my hijab and perform ablution to prepare for prayer. This is something that I have to anticipate not being able to do before I leave the house, because sometimes Muslim prayer spaces don't accommodate for women who wear hijab.
It meant a lot to me to be able to comfortably pray as I was able to return to my desk reenergised and refocused which is one of the great benefits of the five daily prayers Muslims observe and therefore helped me feel so much more motivated.
This for me is a great example of inclusivity and I hope that these facilities become a standard in all offices, especially by companies that are looking to attract female Muslim talent."
Nuzhah Miah
We are very pleased to see that our appliances are being used and appreciated by the Muslim community.
One of our customers sent us this photo recently. She had a WuduMate Classic installed in her home bathroom in Birmingham.
It blends in just perfectly with the bathroom design, with a tasteful glass screen to separate the wudu area from the toilet.
This Coventry secondary school chose WuduMate seat tops and poles to brighten up their ablution area. These seat tops and poles, which come as standard with the WuduMate Modular, are also available separately. The seat tops are available in several different colours and materials.
We are very pleased that WuduMate products have been featured in the latest edition of RIBA - The List.
This publication from the Royal Institute of British Architects, is a directory of Chartered Architect practices in the UK.
The Victoria state government in Australia has demonstrated a progressive lead in its approach to diversity, by opening the Silver Wattle Multifaith Room, equipped with a WuduMate Compact, the world’s leading washing appliance for the muslim pre-prayer ritual of wudu.
On the left hand side, some of the WuduMate Modular units are configured for standing access. Some Muslims, especially in western clothing, prefer to stand while performing wudu.
This article is an extract from our booklet Diversity Matters - Guide to Best Practice Multi-Faith Room Design. To download a pdf copy of the full booklet, please click the image below
It can be difficult to equip events such as seminars, weddings, festivals and exhibitions with appropriate prayer and washing facilities for Muslim guests, since this is likely to involve a temporary high level of demand. However, there is a huge amount of goodwill to be gained if you can try to meet the spiritual needs of your guests while they attend your event.
Allocating a space for prayer can be relatively easy in a commercial environment, either to be left as a dedicated space for Salat for the duration of the event, or used at other times for something else, and space cleared/chairs moved etc specifically for Salat when required.
If you are setting up a temporary prayer area for guests including Muslims, please take a look at our article on Tips for Setting up a Prayer room, to ensure that your space is fit for purpose - alternatively download the guide above as it will give you hints and tips to make the space as comfortable and amenable as possible.
Making suitable provision for ablution before prayer (Wudu) can be more difficult, because the only, likely, existing space with running water suitable for wudu, would be the washrooms; this will require visitors to wash their feet in washbasins, which is not recommended, and also not popular with Health & Safety officials.
There are some temporary wudu facilities provided by WuduMate, which can be considered, and this specialist company can also provide personal bidets for visiting Muslims to use after visiting the toilet to perform ‘Istinja’, another ablution requirement before prayer.
Where it is not possible to get easy access to mains water and drainage services, to provide a Wudu facility close to a suitable prayer area, it is possible to take a temporary wudu facility to the prayer area. The WuduMate Mobile is manufactured with integral clean and grey water reservoirs, and can be wheeled for use to a convenient location for Wudu.
Typical applications could include:-
If you are planning an event at which you are expecting a significant number of Muslim guests, it is easy to provide for their prayer needs. Please contact WuduMate for any enquiries you have about our products.
This article is one in a series that has been extracted from our booklet DIversity Matters -a guide to Best Practice in the Design of Multi-Faith rooms. You can download the whole booklet, or read other articles in this series here:
This article is an extract from our booklet Diversity Matters - a guide to Best Practice in the Design of Multi-Faith rooms. To download a pdf copy of the full booklet, please click the image below
We are all used to washing our hands after using the toilet, and when we are out in public we expect toilet facilities to be equipped for this basic hygiene protocol, which most people accept as normal. When a toilet facility does not have adequate hand sinks, soap or drying facilities, it leaves the user feeling dissatisfied and uncomfortable.
However, did you know that some faiths also require the washing of intimate parts after using the toilet? This can be difficult for them to accomplish when away from home, where bidet facilities are rarely provided. A person from those faiths will often find that public washroom facilities fall short of ideal for their needs.
There are many ways in which the needs of these people can be accommodated in a workplace, school or public building. It's an area that most people would be embarrassed to talk about or to ask for, but they would probably be delighted to know that someone had considered them, and that their needs were being catered for.
A conventional personal washing appliance in the home would often be a bidet, the personal nature of which dictates that it needs to be located in a private place.
This is rarely practical or cost-effective in a commercial environment - if a traditional bidet is installed in a public lavatory, there needs to be a one to one relationship between bidet to toilet, with both being located behind a locked door to ensure privacy. This is rarely cost-effective in a commercial or public sector environment.
In order to undertake the required personal washing when away from home, some people will fill whatever container they can find (often a cup or water bottle) with water and take this to the privacy of a toilet cubicle to undertake this personal ablution act in private.
Using a single-use, plastic water bottle is environmentally unfriendly due to the wastage of plastic containers, or if the containers are returned after use, (such as a cup to a canteen) there is potentially a hygiene issue. In addition, when water containers are used in toilet areas, they can fall over causing spillages and result in slip hazards.
If your workplace or facility has a number of users who would welcome improved personal washing facilities, there are several other options that could be considered such as the following:
In many Muslim countries, it is customary to install hand showers (douches) behind public toilets, enabling washing of private parts with water (as with a bidet) after toilet use. The disadvantage of douches in a public environment is that they can be (and often are) stolen for home use, and careless use may cause spilt water that could pose a slip hazard.
In addition, it should be noted that most douche products will drip water when left under pressure, i.e. not turned off at the mains supply. To alleviate this, it is recommended that installations include an isolator valve for each user to use before/after use, but on the assumption, users will not turn this off after use, it is recommended that each douche spray is fitted with a time-delay valve to automatically turn the water off after use. It is also recommended that an adequate floor drain be located under the hanging position of the douche spray.
There are a number of electronic bidet toilets available in the market, primarily designed for medical applications in the health sector, and due to their electronic, complex nature, they tend to be more expensive and therefore used more in the home.
Increasingly popular are conventional style western toilets with a hand-operated bidet spout installed under the rim at the back of the toilet. This is sometimes called a Turkish Toilet. Care should be taken to consult local building regulations since it is likely some sort of backflow prevention system will be required.
For environments where the installation and maintenance of douches and bidet toilets is impractical, facilities managers may consider the provision of personal bidets for staff and visitors. The WuduMate Personal is a low cost, reusable, plastic container specifically designed for use as a personal bidet, and an excellent solution where no other suitable appliance is available.
The WuduMate Personal can be conveniently folded after use and carried compactly in its own self-sealable pouch for future use, negating the need for random use of single-use plastic bottles and other unsuitable containers.
“I don't always have a mineral water bottle to hand when I need to wash, and taking cups of water into a toilet is not always practical. The WuduMate Personal is ideal! It can be easily carried in a pocket or handbag, holds almost a litre of water which is more than the small water bottles which I normally use. After use the WuduMate Personal can be easily folded away again for use next time.”
Moazzam Ali, Inventor of the WuduMate Personal
As employers become more familiar with the personal washing requirements of their staff, some are accepting that making an investment into readily available bidet facilities, will in the long term reduce water damage, avoid slip hazards and reduce cleaning costs, as well as increasing satisfaction amongst employees. Providing Personal Bidet dispensers in suitable locations, either on a pay basis or even free of charge, is an easy to justify option.
When you travel abroad, you usually expect toilet facilities to be as you would hope to find them at home. How much do you think you would improve employee and user satisfaction and comfort, if you provided all of them with the kind of washing facilities that they are used to.
This article is one in a series that has been extracted from our booklet DIversity Matters -a guide to Best Practice in the Design of Multi-Faith rooms. You can download the whole booklet, or read other articles in this series here:
This article is an extract from our booklet Diversity Matters - a guide to Best Practice in the Design of Multi-Faith rooms. To download a pdf copy of the full booklet, please click the image below
Most religions and cultures value cleanliness, with some practising ritual washing before prayer or mealtimes. Christian monks used to practice ritual washing in a communal wash area known as a Lavatorium. Although generally abandoned, this custom has been replaced by the washing of hands before meals. Some observant Jews will wash their hands before prayer as a ritual undertaken as a devotion to God and an act of symbolic self-purification.
Probably the most widely performed act of ritual cleansing is wudu, performed by Muslims before Salat (prayers). Wudu shows respect to God by bringing the adherent to prayer in a purified state. The actual practice of wudu varies between different Muslim groups, generally, however, it requires the washing of the face, head, hands, arms and feet.
Clean running water must be used except in some circumstances where no water is available. Contact with static or grey (dirty) water can invalidate the wudu ritual and should be prevented in any washing facility provided.
Wudu can take up to about three and a half minutes, and thus an appropriate number of washing stations need to be provided to cater for the probable number of people likely to want to perform wudu without causing too much of a queue.
Imagine you are a conscientious, hard-working employee of a supermarket chain. You are a Muslim and in your daily life, you try hard to observe the quite demanding duties of ritual washing and prayer. But it’s not easy.
Your employer is sympathetic and tries to understand, but he does not really quite appreciate how difficult it is for you to find somewhere appropriate to carry out your religious duties in a quiet, dignified way which meets the requirements of your faith and personal aspirations without causing offence or distraction to colleagues.
You put up with having to wash your feet in the staff toilet in a wash hand basin over two feet high. You cringe when you put your bare foot back on the floor which is by now wet with unclean water and dangerously slippery. You brace yourself for the walk past non-Muslim staff to the storage area where you are allowed to say your prayers with the other four Muslims who work in the supermarket.
Your employer is really good to be so sympathetic. But you believe another employer not far away has gone even further to accommodate the religious needs of his multi-ethnic staff by implementing a purpose-built facility for wudu and prayer. Maybe you should make some enquiries… Could this be your washroom?
In Muslim ablution terms, the organisation of a ‘clean zone’ aims at keeping the praying space free of organic traces, bad smells, and other things that render the praying space unusable for Salat or would upset those performing their prayers. It is therefore important in the design of the prayer area to define a line after which people should not be wearing their shoes, since these shoes might be carrying traces of road dirt.
The ‘line’ designating this clean zone can be a change of floor material, a small step or even a taped line on the floor; shoes should be left outside the clean zone; thus any shoe racks should also be located outside this zone. Toilets should obviously be outside this zone, ablution spaces though can be, and probably should be inside this zone. Conceptually, access to the ablution space can be from either outside or from inside the clean zone. Access from inside the clean zone can be either directly from the praying area or through a corridor or other types of links, but care must be taken to ensure no water is taken from the ablution area to the prayer hall.
Many corporate bodies remain unaware of the importance of the washing ritual to Muslims and do not provide appropriate washing facilities. This leaves observant Muslims having, for example, to wash their feet in an ordinary hand basin in a toilet area. This not only shows a casual disregard for their needs but also creates very real and obvious health and safety hazards.
A solution is to provide tailor-made washing facilities which could be more closely associated with the prayer room – e.g. completely separate from toilet areas, which is a highly recommended approach if space can be made available.
The water used for wudu must be clean and flowing. Although not mandatory, in colder climates it should be pre-mixed to an ambient temperature before being dispensed.
If a sick or disabled person cannot do wudu with water because he is unable to do so, there is a dispensation that he/she can follow called ‘Tayammum’. ‘Tayammum’ literally involves the disabled/sick person ‘striking their hands on pure dust’, then wiping his/her face with the inside of their fingers and palms. In the likely circumstance, no ‘pure dust’ is available, other natural substances such as floor or wall tiles can be used.
Despite the above, it is suggested that ‘best efforts’ are made to accommodate disabled people in the wudu area, but it is extremely difficult to configure a disabled facility for wudu that caters for every type of disability.
Unlike disabled toilets where in many countries there is a published standard, there is rarely a standard for the provision of disabled wudu facilities. For any project outside the UK which requires wudu facilities, it is suggested that local regulations are checked to ascertain whether there are any documented standards for providing wudu facilities for disabled people in commercial buildings; if not, the following approach would be sensible.
It is suggested, that whatever arrangements are being considered for wudu, they should at least demonstrate ‘best efforts’ to cater for disabled users. If it can be demonstrated that ‘best efforts’ have been made to cater for the needs of the disabled in a wudu facility, these are likely to be accepted by any reasonable disability auditor.
WuduMate is a unique range of washing appliances specifically designed for the Muslim ritual of wudu. Designed and manufactured by the Specialist Washing Company of the United Kingdom, (trading as WuduMate), a range of WuduMate models are available for use in the workplace, meeting all of the aforementioned requirements.
There are a number of WuduMate configurations which can be used to assist in this, with each WuduMate model configurable to some extent for disabled use, some facilitating wheelchair access better than others:
Allowing time for prayer and providing a designated space or a multi-faith room in a workplace is a big step towards inclusion of employees from different cultures.
However, especially if you have Muslim employees, it is also worth considering, and maybe consulting the employees themselves, as to what facilities would enable them to make their ritual ablutions comfortably and discreetly.
This article is one in a series that has been extracted from our booklet DIversity Matters -a guide to Best Practice in the Design of Multi-Faith rooms. You can download the whole booklet, or read other articles in this series here:
