About
Carpe Diem
Many years ago, I witnessed time and again the joy and delight that Don’s Mark I version of the new Mark II Loo-Loo brought to thousands of families in South Africa. Over a decade later, the four “Success Stories” in this proposal bear witness to proof of concept.
Undergirding my long-held desire to “help communities help themselves”, is my 30 years spent helping build a successful sanitation company in South Africa and 48 years of business experience. To make my desire to change lives a reality, I founded SRS (Sustainable Rural Sanitation LLC) in 2017 and we have been granted public charity 501(c)(3) status by the IRS, thus ensuring funder’s and donor’s contributions are tax deductible in the U.S.A.
Our primary motivation is to make a difference in the lives of people who will never have a a decent toilet.
Gavin R. Pryce Lewis, Founder & CEO
Who we are
Gavin R. Pryce Lewis
Founder & CEO
Gavin Pryce Lewis is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Rural Sanitation, LLC, [a Section 501(C)3 not-for-profit public organization].
His personal goal is to make toilets an object of desire, restore human dignity, uplift health & hygiene and eliminate open defecation in rural and semi-urban areas world-wide. Internationally-focused with dual citizenship and based in Boston MA, he is currently available to assist corporations, foundations, AID organizations, NGO’s, and any others wishing to expand their Social Responsibility programs. In 1971, Gavin graduated with a 4-year diploma in civil engineering, and worked for 12 years’ as a Civil Engineering Contractor. For 31 years, Gavin helped build Calcamite Water & Sanitation Services into a successful company with customers all over Africa. He provided leadership in his positions as a Director and Marketing Director. Gavin now wants to use his nearly 50 years in business to make a life-changing difference by providing sustainable, decent toilets that disenfranchised people will be proud of. “Together We Can Make A Difference”.
Dr. Hilton Pryce Lewis
Trustee / Advisor
Dr. Hilton Pryce Lewis is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of GVD Corporation. Hilton founded GVD in 2001, after completing his Ph.D. with Dr. Gleason at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During his studies, Hilton recognized the commercial value offered by the novel processes that had been developed in Dr. Gleason’s lab, and founded GVD to scale up, develop, and commercialize these processes. Hilton has been the driving force behind the company since inception, and has successfully led the company from a startup endeavor to a thriving technology company serving multiple disparate industries. Hilton received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Natal, South Africa and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.
Nigel Belton
Trustee / Advisor
Nigel served in various financial executive positions for Multi National companies in South Africa and is a 17 year veteran of Yum Brands, the worldwide owner of the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands where he held the positions of CFO and CDO for the subsidiary in Dubai before being appointed the CEO for the KFC Pakistan business. He relocated to the USA in 2015 and has since supported various companies in an advisory capacity.
Nigel’s passion is the pursuit of bringing about change and building businesses led by strategic focus, insight and support of talented individuals. His commercial experience spreads across a number of business disciplines – strategic planning, brand building driven by deep consumer insights, finance, store development and design, building franchisee and network capability, supply chain, quality assurance and legal.
Nigel also partners with Global Advance (GA) where he has shared his business experiences on a pro bona basis in various part of the world. GA is a non-profit, USA based organization, focusing on empowering frontline leaders.
Joshua Vizzacco
Brand Manager / Advisor
When Gavin approached Joshua with the ideas behind SRS Joshua knew the task was right up his alley. Joshua’s experience and passion for building and designing brands that truly matter made the project a no-brainer. Joshua has been a professional graphic designer working with brands for over ten years. He has worked with teams of all sizes and independently in both his own business and branding agency in Massachusetts where he serves full time as the creative director. He has worked for both corporate and non-profit clients but holds a special place in his heart for those looking to give back to the world in responsible and effective ways.
Honoring the original pioneer
In 1991, a friend of mine and seasoned South African NGO field worker, Don Crawford, had the vision and innovative foresight to design and develop an improved pit toilet construction. Unlike the average VIP (Ventilated Improved Pit) toilet, the “Phungaluthu” (a Zulu word whose literal translation is, “No smell!”) didn’t smell and consequently wasn’t fly-infested and hazardous.
Don patented the concept in 1992 and amended the patent in 1994 to include the use of a pre-molded pit cover as an alternative to constructing the pit cover in-situ using imported building materials. After some initial success, the concept has been ignored for the past decade due to government and municipal insistence that the conventional VIP toilet constitutes “adequate sanitation” for the “masses”.
Together we can make a difference.
