Ruparelia Foundation, the charitable arm of Ruparelia Group, is to build 5 green toilets annually in selected Kampala slums, Rajiv Ruparelia the Group’s Managing Director has said.
Speaking at a function to commission the building of an eco-friendly toilet facility at Good Samaritan Primary School in Kamwokya on December 6th 2019, Rajiv said that the project will be funded by proceeds from the Royal Ascot Goat Races.
The 6-stance toilet- 2 for boys, 2 for girls and 2 for teachers, will serve the school of over 500 pupils and will be built using the Eco Brick. The Eco Brick, is a product of Ghetto Research Labs, a community-based NGO in the Kamwokya slums.
The brick is made out of stuffing and compacting polythene bags, commonly known as kaveera into plastic bottles and sealing it off with the bottle’s original cap. A one-litre bottle can accommodate up to 750 kaveera. The eco-bricks are then used as substitutes for normal clay bricks and are then used along with normal cement and sand mortar to erect wall structures.
The project is a brainchild of Mujuzi Patrick, a trained teacher. He uses unemployed slum dwellers to collect the kaveera and plastic bottles from the ghettos.
“This is a wonderful project which helps communities in many ways. It unblocks all the drainage channels clogged by the polythene bags, recycles the plastic bags and keeps the ghettos clean. The stipend given to the ghetto youths to collect the plastic bags and bottles keeps them away from crime. The eco-brick itself is youth environment friendly. Good sanitation, other than keeping the ghettos clean and healthy, also helps keep more children in school and education is fundamental to every society,” noted Rajiv Ruparelia.
He said henceforth, the Ruparelia Group would collect all the used bottles from their chain of hotels for the project.
“We have given them a target to build 5 toilets a year in different Kampala ghettos first and after that, we shall take it national,” said Rajiv.
Rajiv thanked the Royal Ascot Goat Races sponsors- SanyuFm, Speke Resort Munyonyo, NTV Uganda, Yo Kuku, Euroflex, Orient Bank, Brussels Airlines, Shell Gas, Farm Equipment & Construction Ltd and Robbialac Paints for making a difference.
Pearl Bank Celebrates Customers in Festive Campaign Dubbed Pearl SantaRajiv who is a trustee to the foundation was flanked by Mrs Jyostna Ruparelia a co-founder of the foundation as well as well as Sheena Ruparelia and Naiya Ruparelia who are also trustees.
According to Kampala Slum Settlements: Where access to Safe Water and Sanitation is still a Challenge, a report by Development Research and Training (DRT), Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and ACTogether up to 70% of urban dwellers do not have private sanitation in their home and rely on an informal network of shared toilets. In Kawempe and Makindye 16% and 4.2% of households respectively use paid for Public toilets. In one of Makindye slum a public toilet is located in another zone and serves 3 zones.
Kampala, the Capital City of Uganda, has got over 57 slum settlements.
Ruparelia Foundation: Enriching lives together
The Ruparelia Foundation was founded in 2012 by Dr & Mrs Sudhir Ruparelia and runs its programmes under the theme: “Enriching Lives Together”.
It funds startups, education, environment preservation, health, general welfare, religious charity, research, sports, wildlife and animal conservation.
Todate, more than 600 charitable cause have been funded by the charity.
Previous beneficiaries of Goat Races charity include Katalemwa Cheshire Home who specialise in providing assistance to the physically disabled including provision of medical, orthopaedic and surgical facilities, education and training as well as Nsambya Babies Home.
