WaSH-UP Sustainable Livelihoods and Business Operations

An exterior shot of the Mandela Park WaSH-UP Facility, prior to renovations.

The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Upgrading Programme (WaSH-UP) is an innovative solution to South Africa’s longstanding crisis around water and sanitation in informal settlements. For the past three years, a partnership consisting of the WPI Cape Town Project Centre (CTPC), the Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC) and the Municipality of Stellenbosch has funded the construction and operations of a WaSH-UP facility in Langrug, which not only addresses key water and sanitation issues, but also provides the community with a dignified social space. The goal of our project was to create an integrated business model to adequately maintain and manage the current WaSH-UP facility. To realize this goal, the team worked with community members to devise a business plan, create a management structure for their savings group, identify possible revenue sources, and implement a kiosk. The kiosk would add to the WaSH programme by selling health, education and wellness (HEW) goods, while also providing a new source of income for the facility. The project and partnership resulted in a formalized constitution for the savings group, large exterior renovations to market the facility, a fully stocked and operational kiosk business and a business plan and guidelines to sustain a savings group business in similar WaSH facilities.

In order to understand the work we had to complete, we compiled an extensive amount of background research. With this valuable information in hand, were were then able to establish a Mission Statement and a set of Objectives. It was with these objectives in mind that we set to work in Langrug, with the hope of instituting a business model within the WaSH-UP facility. To track our day-to-day activities, we created a written narrative of important events relating to our project, called “Acts & Scenes“.

To learn about our project from start to finish, including our project outcomes, please read our Executive Summary!