Tired of waiting for the government to honour promises, the community of Mzondi have started a crowdfund to build 30 working toilets in their informal settlement.
Mzondi, South Africa (13 March 2018) – The community of Mzondi in Ivory Park is taking proactive steps towards bettering their informal settlement. Instead of striking and getting angry, they are crowdfunding the project through Thundafund.
Thundafund is an incentivised platform that gives financial backers something in return for their donation. The platform also has a donation threshold and if the money is not raised in time, backers are refunded their full donation.
The Mzondi informal settlement consists of over housing 300 units with only four toilets catering for everybody and one of them has neither shelter nor privacy. They are looking to have 30 toilets built and spread out across the community.
The crowdfund was launched by Grassroot which is an organisation that uplifts previously disadvantaged communities
“Together, we seek to rekindle the ability to act together [in the way] that defeated Apartheid and with it transform and strengthen our democracy.”
“We aim to create solutions that enable communities and individuals to act together with more endurance, skill and independence from above than is feasible today.”
The communities dream goal is to raise R60,000.00 but their tipping point is R41,250. Which is broken down in the following way:
30 x shelter units = R22,500 (R750 each)
30 x bags of cement = R2,250 (R75 each)
30 x toilet bowels = R7,500 (R250 each)
Plastering x 30 units = R9000 (R300 each)
Dream goal
The tipping point will cover all the material needed to build the toilets but leaves out the cost of labour and transportation. With the dream goal reached, the community of Mzondi might save time with regards to the labour involved in installing these toilets given the fact that none of them has the full technical expertise to complete this task unaided.
Update: This Thundafund has since closed, you can find the latest update here.
You can find the fund here or contact Katlego Mohlabane who is the outreach coordinator at Grassroot, via email here. Grassroot provides the civic technology that is used to organise the community and Katlego also shares information about the community on its website.
Every backer will get their name on the Mzondi wall of fame and a thank you email for helping the community.
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