Improving sanitation services to raise school girl attendance in South Africa

The rationale for this project is the need to dramatically improve the usability of existing school sanitation facilities through franchised operation and maintenance services and safe handling of faecal sludge for non-sewered urban and peri-urban areas of East London District. This is aimed to facilitate better learning and improve environmental sanitation.

The project will be implemented in the Eastern Cape Province, one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, which suffers from a huge sanitation backlog, with high proportions (50%) of the population using ordinary pit latrines. It targets the Educational District of East London, one of 23 Educational Districts (predominantly peri-urban) within the Eastern Cape, with over 5,626 schools and 1.9 million enrolled children. These schools have no existing regular, structural or emergency operations or maintenance mechanism for servicing existing school sanitation facilities. The maintenance of clean school sanitation facilities by the franchisees will benefit about 100 000 learners.

The goal of the project is to replicate affordable and sustainable operation and maintenance of usable and clean school sanitation facilities and safe handling, treatment and re-use of faecal sludge in peri-urban areas of Amathole and Buffalo City Municipalities in East London Educational District (ELD). The project will expand on improved school sanitation and faecal sludge management in Eastern Cape Province.