Water champions celebrated by Kusini Water in Bryanston

The Forum The Campus in Bryanston saw community-based water champions honoured by Kusini Water on World Water Day in celebration of their accomplishments over the past 365 days of solving water challenges.

World Water Day was celebrated internationally on March 22, when Kusini presented their event themed ‘Ripples of Resilience’.

The event, emceed by esteemed debate champion and media presenter Oliver Dickson, was characterised by the top three water champions curating their exhibition, simultaneous free-flowing conversational panel sessions, and the opportunity to network with industry peers.

Limpopo-based water process controller Nduvho Netshifhefhe, water purification Mmabatho Nthite from Madibeng Municipality, and Pretoria-based school patroller Kabelo Molalatladi, were the three water champions presenting on their progress at identifying water-related challenges in their communities and solving these challenges sustainably.

Kusini Water CEO Murendeni Mafumo praised the event as an opportunity to increase public understanding of the importance of resilience in our communities; what communities are doing to make sure they can get access to water, as well as what communities can do to safeguard the resource that is water. Mafumo also explained what water champions are, and their key contributions towards the event.

“Today is about taking stock. It’s been 12 months of planning, seeing what works; and today is about celebrating what these guys are doing in their communities,” said Mafumo. “Water champions primarily speak to the provision of access to water.

“That’s what we’re trying to do as part of our goals in providing access to water: bringing communities along, getting water, purifying water, distributing the water, but, importantly, making money from that water as well; and creating jobs from that water.”

Madute Rapulane, a civil engineer within the water sector, was one of the panellists hosting dialogues with guests at the event.

Rapulane, indicating that his job is to assist entities to designing, implementing and constructing utilities like pipes and reservoirs, identified some of the more pressing challenges impacting the sector.

“One of the biggest problems that we have is that we don’t know what we have, because everything is underground,” Rapulane said. “We need people willing to say, ‘My job is to map out all the infrastructure; I must go find it, and I must detail, draw, and record it’.”

Rapulane also lamented the rate at which key information on South Africa’s infrastructure has been passed down generationally.

“The things we’re struggling with the most are old infrastructure, knowledge of the infrastructure, and having enough people on the ground to manage the infrastructure,” Rapulane said. “Most of the services are there, but people have come and gone over the last 30 years in our organisations. When they come and go, information is lost.”

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