When South African childhood friends and later entrepreneurs Thato
Kgatlhanye and Rea Ngwane finished high school, they knew they wanted to
start something that impacted young people and underprivileged
communities. At age 18, they founded Rethaka, a social enterprise they
hoped would do just that, although it would be two years before they
figured out how.
Re-purpose Schoolbags is an environmentally
-friendly
innovation made from ‘up-cycled’ plastic shopping bags with built-in
solar technology that charges up during the day and transforms into a
light at night. The initiative targets school children in
underprivileged communities and looks at addressing a number of
problems.
Firstly, the bags allow them to study after dark in homes
without electricity. Secondly, the bags are designed with reflective
material, so that children are visible to traffic during their walk to
and from school.
The production of Re-purpose Schoolbags
also involves the collection and recycling of plastic bags that
typically litter the South African landscape.
According to
Kgatlhanye, there is room to develop additional products along the same
idea, such as raincoats. However, she added this is something the team
will think about at a later stage, as they are still trying to ramp-up
production of the schoolbags and expand to other communities.
No comments:
Post a Comment