Unisa's Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) Professor Phumela Msweli, says people in the rural parts of South Africa live under severe conditions of scarce supply of clean running water.
Msweli states that people in rural communities still walk about 10km to fetch water in reservoirs which they share with animals.
As party of the community engagement and research scholarship, Professor Msweli urges corporate businesses to donate funding in order to supply clean tap water to the affected rural parts of South Africa.
The Unisa School of Business Leadership uses this initiative to link students with communities in order to effect research while ensuring that human capital investment translates to transformation within communities, says Phumela Msweli.
She further said that the project serves as a contribution to the recovery of the country’s economy.
While raising funds for two communities in eMampondweni in the Eastern Cape, they thought to extend to a call to invite South Africans to these communities and also urge corporate businesses to donate funds, Professor said.
As one of the initiatives for fundraising, Msweli says they have organised a 61km hike which will be crossing within these affected rural communities.
The participants are expected to pledge funds to the walk initiative which will take about five days. The distance will be divided into segments and will start from Port St Johns at 05:h00am, says the Unisa SBL Dean.
She explains that Day one of the hike will be 16km, while day two will be 18km, and day three will be 23km until Coffee Bay, which is the destination of the hike.
According to the professor, the initiative is geared to “kill two birds with one stone”, where funds will be raised to address water challenges in the rural communities and also promote tourism in these communities.
The project is set to create access to educational experiences as well as help in building structures that will be our incubators as we bring university to the community to develop skills.
Msweli urges South Africans to donate anything from R50 to R150 to Unisa enterprise in order to build these skill and educational based structures. She further promised that the initiative is continuous, and the next date will be in May 2022.
