Related Content Where roofs fly faster than jobs and water

WHILE the government‘s lack of service delivery to rural towns throughout the Eastern Cape has been slammed in recent weeks, a small Karoo town is taking the bull by the horns with a project which is set to have national repercussions.

Jansenville, 130km north-west of Nelson Mandela Bay, is on the cusp of completing a pilot community water recycling project for the entire country – the Communal Water House (CWH).

The multi-million rand project, which includes a community centre fitted with 10 private showers and a room for washing machines and a laundry, is a joint operation funded by the department of science and technology, as well as the German ministry for education and research.

The University of Potsdam, outside Berlin, is overseeing the project.

The CWH will also have solar-heated water, solar air-conditioning and solar-powered water pumps.

Next week giant specialised water treatment tanks will arrive in the Bay, shipped from Germany. The tanks, which will recycle water used to shower and wash clothes, make up the final part of the year-long project.

“The Communal Water House is important because water is so scarce in this area,” said Ikwezi (consisting of Jansenville, Kliplaat and Waterford) mayor Sizwe Mngwevu. “We have already set up a committee, made up of members of the community, to oversee its running.”

Plagued not only with an unemployment rate of more than 60 per cent, Jansenville residents must constantly battle low water reserves brought on by frequent droughts.

But refusing to accept the status quo, Mngwevu last year made contact with German ambassador to South Africa Dieter Haller, who earmarked the tiny town for the pilot project.

The plan, said Mngwevu standing outside the centre which is built in the Kwazamucinga township which surrounds the town, was to use the project to unify the community.

A co-op business would be formed by the community to operate a laundry in the centre, where residents could take their dirty clothes and for a much-reduced fee, have them cleaned and ironed.

“While they wait they can sit and watch sport and speak about important matters,” Mngwevu said, pointing to the adjacent sportsfield. Excess water from the centre would go to watering the field, which at present is bone dry.

“I got hold of Mr Haller last year regarding this project,” he said. “I didn‘t want to waste any time. I want to see this centre up and running by June.”

With no short-cuts taken, the centre is one to be proud of. The showers are tiled and will also have lockers for residents to store valuables while showering. While residents will be able to make use of the basins in the centre to wash their clothes, the washing machines will be under the care of the co-op company which will run the laundry service. All the water used will be recycled using the state-of- the-art German technology.

Mngevu said the German funding didn‘t stop there.

Other German-funded upliftment projects include a mohair spinning and weaving workshop due in June, training women in the area to be able to make saleable products out of raw mohair, as well as a recycling project which would see plastic waste melted down and used for making, among other things, roof gutters, and metals would be gathered and sold.

“We would like to establish an Ikwezi soccer team as well,” Mngwevu said. “With all the hype around the 2010 Soccer World Cup, it would be nice to have a local team to be proud of.”