Mark Barnes, the executive chairman at Purple Group is on a mission to flush out the scourge of pit toilets at schools in South Africa.
Barnes and NGO Breadline Africa joined forces to eradicate pit toilets in schools in the country.
The project is set to see the first installation of toilets on Thursday at Umsunduze Primary School in KwaZulu-Natal.
In a statement, Breadline Africa said, “The school toilet crisis in South Africa is affecting thousands of learners. Many schools lack safe, functional, and hygienic toilet facilities, which leads to unhygienic conditions, health risks, and emotional distress for children. This crisis contributes to absenteeism, poor academic performance and even dropout rates.”
🇿🇦Breadline Africa and I have joined forces to eradicate pit toilets in schools in SA - our first flush will be at Umsunduze Primary School on Thursday! Listen up on 702 at 18:40 tonight - see before/after below …🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/9zaMNzb0GD
🇿🇦Flush challenge: Breadline Africa works to fix SA’s pit toilet crisis in a KZN school https://t.co/vXoR0SgjBe🇿🇦On Thursday, in Ndwedwe, KZN some school children will flush a toilet for the first time in their lives!🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/hhoI4xy85P
— Mark Barnes (@mark_barnes56) June 20, 2023
The chairman appeared on Bruce Whitfield’s Money Show to talk about his initiative.
During the interview, Barnes said, “I put out a tweet saying I will put in some of my money and time into this and if there’s enough interest. That got about 540 000 views and said there is enough interest. I was then approached by Breadline and we started talking that was less than 3 months ago.”
“I said let us go find a school with holes in the ground and lets build them proper flushing toilets. We are now going to be opening 18 flushing toilets that work, to replace holes in the ground.”
Listen to his interview below:
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