Tsebo Cleaning and Hygiene Solutions is proud to announce that it has initiated a project to provide specialised cleaning and training for four government schools in the townships of Atteridgeville, Mamelodi and Alexandra in Gauteng. The Tsebo Foundation provided a substantial grant towards a partnership with Elevated Hygiene Services. The SMME partnership aims to identify schools in need within communities that are near to some of Tsebo’s key customers.
Learners spend about half their day in school or participating in school activities, in which they can be exposed to highly contagious diseases such as upper respiratory infections, eye infections, influenza, hookworm, gastro-enteritis (diarrhoea) and tonsillitis. Without adequate hygiene practices, particularly when it comes to clean toilets and the availability of soap for regular handwashing, these communicable diseases can quickly become epidemic. Aside from being essential for a safe and healthy learning environment, cleanliness and hygiene have a positive psychological benefit which promotes more effective learning.
“The benefit to the schools is manifold,” says Monwabisi (MK) Kalawe, CEO: Tsebo Cleaning and Hygiene Solutions. “There is an environmental compliance aspect because we are using environmentally friendly cleaning products and techniques, there’s a safety element, a cleanliness element and a hygiene element.
“Remember the future business leaders, entrepreneurs and professors are going to come from these kids, so in a small way we are helping to set a standard and create a solid foundation for these little ones to emerge as leaders.”
Tsebo’s relationship with Elevated Hygiene Services began when Tsebo Cleaning and Hygiene Solutions partnered with the SMME on a bid for large hospital project a few years ago. The school cleaning project was made possible through the support of the Tsebo Foundation, a Section 21 not-for-profit company, which conducts the corporate social outreach for the Tsebo Solutions Group. The Foundation oversees, manages and governs all charitable activity across the Group, ensuring effective management and channeling of funds, as well as a centralised reporting framework.
As an industry leader, Tsebo recognises the need to develop SMMEs in South Africa and Elevated Hygiene Services was chosen from among a selection of small businesses. In addition to passing the objective criteria, they showed enormous passion and commitment. It subsequently became Tsebo Cleaning and Hygiene Solutions’ enterprise partner of choice and has benefitted from skills and knowledge share as well as operational support.
“At Tsebo, we believe in developing tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and supporting initiatives that enable people to support themselves, employ others, build community roots and create economic stability,” said Janine Tuck, National Operations Director: Tsebo Cleaning. “SMME development forms an important part of Tsebo’s sustainable business model and our purpose as a responsible organisation.”
When Tsebo Cleaning and Hygiene realised that there was a need for specialised, high-level cleaning in underprivileged schools, they looked to Elevated Hygiene Services as an obvious choice to partner on the initiative.
Being brought up and schooled in Mamelodi, Brian Zulu, owner and manager of Elevated Hygiene Services was well placed to identify disadvantaged schools that desperately needed help with elevating their cleaning and hygiene standards. The schools that were selected for this project were:
• Thohoyandou Primary School in Atteridgeville.
• Sikhanyisela Primary School in Mamelodi
• Zenzeleni Primary School and Ithute Primary School in Alexandra
Elevated Hygiene Services was tasked with deep cleaning the schools’ classrooms, passageways administrative buildings and ablution facilities.
“We are a small but growing business which supports 75 staff members,” said Zulu. “The relationship with Tsebo has benefitted us enormously, not just through training for specialised health cleaning, but also by allowing us the buying power normally only available to large corporations. We’re small now, but we hope to grow up to be a Tsebo one day.”
The donation was extended to include cleaning equipment tools and chemicals as well as training, which was conducted by an independent cleaning auditor. For this Tsebo partnered with Marietjie Swanepoel, an industry expert who specialises in healthcare cleaning and cross-contamination prevention. Marietjie will provide training on how clean for health, which will benefit the kids going forward.
“The level of cleaning was not quite up to standard at our school,” said Azwinndini Netshimbani Coordinator for Environment: Zenzeleni Primary School. “We struggle to find funds for cleaning products, so I do believe we are going to find this useful and fruitful, I believe our cleaning staff are going to learn a lot and become more motivated.”
“Through our financial and advisory support of the project, we are empowering Elevated Hygiene Services to clean these schools. Not only are we living up to our mandate to support financially-sound SMME development, but we are also uplifting our local communities by providing the children with a safer and more hygienic learning environment,” concludes Cynthia Mothibe, Group Foundation Manager.
