18 November 2024: 19 November marks World Toilet Day 2024 – an annual observation aimed at improving the conditions of what the United Nations calls, “the global sanitation crisis”. In solidarity with the UN’s mission to achieve “sanitation for all” by 2030, Baby Soft® partnered with Domestos and the Department of Basic Education to run an audit across select schools in the Eastern Cape and provide the much-needed resources.
Building toilets for budding dreamers
In South Africa, as many as 9 out of 10 children are negatively impacted by the poor state of their school toilets. This is according to the 2021 School Toilet Report by Domestos which links poor sanitation facilities to heightened anxiety, poor health, and higher levels of absenteeism. These issues extend into the home as parents worry about their children’s well-being and overall development while they are at school.
Baby Soft® has been instrumental in transforming the lives of school children in Limpopo since 2018 when they launched their TOGETHER campaign – encouraging good hygiene practices through the building of toilets, provision of clean water, and the installation of handwashing facilities at 15 rural Limpopo schools.
“We have placed great effort into building the necessary infrastructure in the past years, where 212 school toilets were built in the Limpopo region. Now, we are focusing on sustaining those efforts through the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of these facilities in parts of the country that are most affected such as the Eastern Cape where the initiative kicked off this year,” says Baby Soft® Brand Manager, Siyolise Shinga.
The partnership with Domestos under the new theme, UNSTOPPABLE TOGETHER ran in two phases where the hygiene states of the selected schools were audited, and the baseline results recorded. This was followed by an intervention from Baby Soft® and Domestos where donations and targeted education were driven over three months.
Over the last two months, phase two of UNSTOPPABLE TOGETHER has seen Baby Soft® and Domestos providing enough cleaning supplies and toilet paper to service all 300 schools in the programme.
Siyolise reports that these schools received educational material and training for their cleaning staff to uphold the proper maintenance and upkeep of toilets: “World Toilet Day is an opportunity to highlight the need for continued support to upskill cleaners and curb the negative impact of poor sanitation on students’ well-being, as well as their academic performance due to absenteeism. The first Saturday of November also marked National Children’s Day, and in light of that we want to urge South Africans to support us in our mission to provide children with the basic right to a clean learning environment.”
Agreeing with this is Mr Ntsikelelo Ntwanambi, Chief Education Specialist at Infrastructure Planning for the Eastern Cape Department of Education who adds that: “Partnerships and drives like the UNSTOPPABLE TOGETHER campaign play a crucial role in supporting the Department of Education in delivering on imperatives such as creating safer, happier and more supportive schooling environments.
The impact of this campaign will be far-reaching and overwhelmingly positive – affording children with these facilities will go a long way in providing them with a sense of dignity, self-esteem and self-worth. Let’s continue to show up for the children of this nation and make these kinds of investments into a brighter future for all.”
