Neighbourhood watches support Operation Hydrate

The residents of both Montgomery and Roosevelt Park stepped up to the challenge and donated 2 101 five litre bottles of water in co-ordination with Operation Hydrate.

At the end of February, Operation Hydrate, led by Shaheen Theba and Yusuf Abramjee, embarked on engaging neighbourhood watches and resident’s associations to join the initiative and stimulate the local communities to donate water for these drought-stricken areas. Operation Hydrate is a community organisation that has been mentioned by President Jacob Zuma in his state of the nation address, together with both the public, private and NGO sectors, because of the work they do to encourage communities to donate water to help severely stricken drought areas in five of our provinces.

In the first effort in the collection drive held in Montgomery and Roosevelt Park, the MR (Montgomery Park and Roosevelt Park Ext 1) Neighbourhood Watch representative, Yusuf Kader said, “The support was phenomenal. Our expectations were not high as we only gave a week’s notice about the collection but within two to three days we already had pledges for hundreds of bottles from people who were willing to donate. It was absolutely touching to receive a request from an elderly person who was unwell, requesting if someone could come to her house to collect her contribution.” The two neighbouring communities collected 10 505 litres and around R1 340 in cash. Operation Hydrate still needs to tally up the EFT and funds deposited directly into the Operation Hydrate account.

The collection drive, which was held on Sunday 6 March, was led by Randy Sibran and Naeem Ally from Montgomery Park and Roosevelt Ext 1, while Desiree le Roux and Mark Reid championed the Roosevelt Park residents’ efforts.

Kader said “The effort would not have been possible if it was not for the numerous volunteers from the community who manned the collection points at both Gibbons Place, Montgomery Park, as well as the park on Denitz Reitz in Roosevelt Park. The volunteers not only provided vehicles for logistics but also threw their backs into hard labour to deliver the collected bottles to the Operation Hydrate warehouse in Crown Mines.”

Kader added “Due to the forecasted drought conditions remaining through the winter months, it is expected that the collection drive will continue until October 2016. In order to facilitate a more sustainable model to assist the drought-stricken areas, the longer term strategy is to stop water collections and focus on collecting funds to be used to drill boreholes in these areas.”

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