The City of Cape Town’s Water and Sanitation mascot Manzi visited the Grade-6 class at Lochnershof Primary School in Strand and inspired learners to tap into the water future. Meeting with young learners was a part of an edutainment roadshow to help the youth unpack the City’s New Water Programme.
Reportedly, the programme aims to augment the Cape Town’s water supply by 300 million litres per day through water reuse, desalination, and other alternative sources.
The Water and Sanitation Community Engagement team has now added a new curriculum to their edutainment messaging, to increase awareness about four priority projects which aim to increase the City’s water supply from 2030 and beyond:
- Water Re-use: Implementing purified recycled wastewater, adding 70 million to 100 million litres a day.
- Desalination: Extracting salt from seawater to yield 50 million to 70 million litres a day.
- Clearing of invasive plant species and various management interventions: Harnessing water from rivers to contribute an additional 30 million litres a day.
- Groundwater extraction: Drilling boreholes and tapping springs securing over 100 million litres a day.
As per the sources, since July 2024, 14 schools within the Cape Town metro have enjoyed participating in Manzi’s 45-minute lessons, delivered with song, dance and interactive games to test-your-knowledge.
Considering this, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Water and Sanitation – Councillor Zahid Badroodien said that it is one of our priorities to transfer knowledge about how water reuse and desalination will help safeguard the City against the impact of climate change on water supply.
According to Badroodien, the schools’ roadshow is more than an awareness drive – it’s an investment in the future engineers, homeowners, and policymakers of Cape Town.
He added that when the youth understand that every water drop can be purified, reused and returned safely to tap, they grow into citizens who value water as the scarce, precious and shared resource that we all need.