Klerksdorp Record, Klerksdorp - Every drop counts.
That is the message from the Department of Water and Sanitation that hosted a public education and awareness programme last week in Dr KK municipalities. The aim is to change people’s behaviour towards wise water use and good hygienic practices.
The Executive Mayor of the City of Matlosana, Cllr James Tsolela supported the initiative and motivated Inyathela Primary School learners to start practising water conservation methods and good health and hygiene.
Because children are the future of this country, the mayor emphasised that learners should incorporate all water conservation methods acquired from the Department of Water and Sanitation and report water leaks to their teachers and parents, use a cup when drinking water, close taps when not in use, harvest rainwater and among other measures, use buckets when cleaning cars instead of a hosepipe.
With an increased rate of vandalism of the water infrastructure in the North West municipalities, councillor of ward 16 in JB Marks Local Municipality, Tshepiso Moalusi encouraged Tlokwe high school learners to teach their communities to conserve water and to protect their water infrastructure against vandalism.
The campaign further proceeded to Fikadibeng Primary School, kilometres away from Potchefstroom. The emphasis was on the demonstration on the seven steps on hand washing, and the demonstration enlightened school learners on proper way of washing hands with soap and water.
“The practice of using one bucket to wash hands is unhygienic especially in funerals as germs are easily transferred from one person to the other hence people always experience runny stomachs after funerals. Most people blame the meat they ate whereas it’s the virus from the contaminated shared water,” Ntja said at the Terminus taxi rank in Klerksdorp.
With South Africa recording approximately 480 millilitres of rainfall per annum, other countries record more or less 800-1 000 millilitres per annum, this implies that SA has lesser amount of water. Thus, the Department of Water and Sanitation will constantly educate the public to be prudent when using water because South Africa is still one of the driest countries in the world.
