Human Interest
#WorldToiletDay: Donate-a-Loo project launched─── 15:41 Mon, 19 Nov 2018
The purpose of World Toilet Day is to serve as a reminder that approximately 4.5 billion people worldwide don’t have access to a toilet and that safe sanitation remains a luxury many cannot afford.
In South Africa, more than 4,000 South African schools still use pit toilets. President Ramaphosa and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni have vowed to eradicate pit latrine toilets over the next two years.
The president said back in August that not enough is being done by the government to ensure schools have decent plumbing, and noted that the “utterly tragic and devastating deaths of children so young and so innocent remind us of the human consequences of service delivery delayed.”
It was announced in the Mid-Term Budget Policy Statement that R800m was set aside for 2018 and 2019, specifically as an adjustment budget for school infrastructure, to “restore dignity to tens of thousands of children”.
The president called on global leaders to help supply adequate sanitation and hygiene.
In light of this, Helene Bramwell created the Donate-a-Loo Schools Project, which kicked off with the installation of six environmentally-friendly toilets at Paradise Bend Primary School in Diepsloot, Johannesburg.
