Cape Town - The City of Cape Town and and Nature Connect came together to participate in the 2022 World Water Day event, hosted by GrandWest Casino.
The theme for World Water Day 2022 was “Groundwater: making the invisible visible”.
The aim was to draw attention to groundwater, which provides almost half of all drinking water worldwide.
There were about 100 guests in attendance, including City workers.
Learners from Valhalla Secondary School and Bellville South High School were at the event to learn about the importance of water preservation and to take part in a clean up of the Elsies River canal.
The clean-up was the main attraction and saw attendees work tirelessly to clear pollution and rubbish in the canal stream near the casino, with more than 10 bags of dirt collected during the clean up.
The proceedings included guest speakers who shared their professional insight into water conservation. The message on the day was clear. To practice the responsible use of water to avoid another Day Zero situation, as was the case in 2018.
Catherine Koen, the Education Programme Co-ordinator at Nature Connect, spoke about the importance of water education and covered the role that the environment and wetlands play in regard to water.
“Wetlands play an important role in providing us with clean drinking water because they serve as a filtration system for our water. It is important for us to keep our rivers clean and protect our environment to protect the water we drink.”
Johannes Prins, the head of water conservation at the City said they’ve started using groundwater to preserve Cape Town’s drinking water.
“We are dependent on water for everything we do and the City has recently launched its water strategy to ensure Cape Town has drinking water. The city has invested R2.4 billion rand into a project that will add 50-60 megalitres of water a day.”
He said the City was also using water training for job creation, using the EPWP recruitment strategy.
Maxwell Dingaan, Environmental Education Officer at City said there were different steps in the entire water production process.
The learners were able to take away valuable information from the day’s proceedings to start to do their bit at their schools to help the community practice responsible water management.