Parents Build Toilets After Schools Wait 10+ Years for Help

When parents at Good Hope Primary in Cofimvaba learned their children might wait another decade for safe bathrooms, they grabbed shovels and started building.

The Eastern Cape province faces a massive challenge: 427 schools still rely on dangerous pit toilets, and with current funding, fixing them all could take ten years or more. That means 200 learners at Good Hope have been forced to use broken pit latrines or the bush, a situation parents finally decided to change themselves.

Each family donated at least ten bricks, and community members volunteered their construction skills. The parents have dug foundations and are now raising money for sand and cement to complete the project they started in November.

The crisis affects roughly 80% of Eastern Cape schools, which struggle with unsafe toilets, unreliable water, and crumbling infrastructure. Grade five student Iviwe Bloom spoke about the fear she feels every day, especially as a girl trying to find a safe place at school.

The funding gap tells the story: eradicating all pit toilets would cost $200 million, but the province received just $20 million this year. Officials plan to fix toilets at 66 schools in 2025, prioritizing larger campuses first.

The Ripple Effect

Parents aren't alone in this fight anymore. Save Our Schools, a nonprofit organization, has invested over $55,000 in direct funding to build proper sanitation systems at rural schools across the province.

In December, the group partnered with companies Amalooloo and Concor to install 12 new toilets at Mampondo Primary after a child fell into a pit toilet. They're now working through a list of 23 schools, with their next project set to finish in April at Babheke School in Lusikisiki.

At Betshwana Primary School in Mount Ayliff, parents have already built two new classrooms after fire destroyed five others. They're proving that communities can create change while waiting for government support to catch up.

Save Our Schools chief executive Shelley Humphreys remains optimistic that current funders will support more schools once they see these first projects succeed. Every completed bathroom represents dozens of children who can finally focus on learning instead of fear.