Walking+for+Water

WALKING FOR WATER FOR MUGWAZENI J SECONDARY SCHOOL

Whilst at the Eco-Schools Conference, held in the Limpopo Province in June, Alison Jennings, a teacher from Brescia House School, visited Mugwazeni J Secondary School. This rural school near Letsitele no longer has access to adequate running water. Since 2007 this school has successfully grown vegetables that have provided food for the learners and their families as well as an income for the school. They have also managed a successful tree nursery that has provided an income for the school and the local community, in an area which has an 80% unemployment rate. At the start of this year their water supply became unreliable and they had to reduce the size of their nursery and their vegetable garden quite substantially. Mr Nyiko Makhamisi and his team of teachers are the dedicated and committed teachers driving these successful projects and the people making a difference for the children at their school and for the people in the broader community. Their greatest need at the school is to have access to water. A good supply of water will also ensure that the children have drinking water at break times and water to flush the toilets. During the visit to the school Nyiko and his headmaster, Jack, said that they could alleviate this problem if they could install a rainwater harvesting system and possibly a borehole.

Brescia House and Mugwazeni J are both Eco-Schools that share the same common goals of environmental protection, awareness and sustainable use. Brescia House has chosen to partner with Nyiko and his school to assist them in re-establishing their vegetable garden and nursery by helping them install a rainwater harvesting system.

Our first partner in this project was Marley Pipe Systems. Peter Marks and his team, from Marley Pipe Systems, arranged for all the guttering to be sponsored and they trained a group of boys at Mugwazeni Secondary School in the installation of guttering. During this training the guttering was successfully fitted to one block of classrooms and the boys were left with the necessary tools and guttering to complete the project. In addition to their sponsorship, Marley Pipe Systems arranged that P&L Hardware, based in Limpopo Province, would sponsor the tools and the ladders to successfully complete the installation of the guttering. Marley Pipe Systems have offered their on-going support of this project until it is completed. The second phase in this project is to get tanks for the water to be collected in and stored.