NEWS
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repair. She thanks the Kearney Family from Ireland for
adopting this toilet.
Call to action World Plumbing Day 11 March 2020
Each of the #ProudToiletParents are submitting
artwork to be painted on their allocated toilet. On World
Plumbing Day 2020 WASSUP Diepsloot will be doing
two things:
• Artists: Artists are invited to come and assist our
local Diepsloot artists and signwriters to paint the
toilets with selected artworks and new messages
which are inspired by our donors from our global
community.
• Plumbers: Come and help us repair ten more
toilets! The more we repair the more water we
save, the more dignity we provide to our fellow
Jo’burg dwellers.
A delighted resident who no longer has to wait so long
to do her ‘business’.
“On Mandela Day 2019 our goal was to repair eight
toilets – thanks to our amazing city-wide plumbing
community we were able to repair 20! We can do this!
“Together we make our city great, come be part of our
local and global community!” PA
Diepsloot and World Plumbing Day 2020
Jennifer van den Bussche, Director, Sticky Situations,
explains the current state of this key World Plumbing Day
initiative: “For ten years a community-based organisation
- WASSUP (Water Amenities, Sanitation Services
Upgrading Programme) has been repairing communal
toilets, taps and drains in Extension 1 of Diepsloot.
“This part of Diepsloot has 642 flushing toilet units
(each has one tap and one drain), 25 000 registered
shacks (a conservative figure considering it does not
include the shacks in between) - that’s 39 households
per toilet unit - or according to census figures around
128 people per toilet.
“No wonder the toilets regularly break as these public
toilets are rarely maintained. WASSUP’s work has
proven that each toilet loses around 4 000ℓ/day of
water per toilet (that’s 1 billion litres of water loss per
year) – but thanks to their hard work the water loss
is far lower. The unquantified data is of course the
reduced leaking sewage and increased dignity for
families who have to share the communal facilities,”
says Van den Bussche.
“Funding is always a challenge, so the team launched
an ‘Adopt-a-Toilet’ programme in late 2019, where
people can adopt one toilet for one year for R1 500.
So far, they have raised enough to keep 35 toilets in
working condition until November 2020.
Responses from people: Toilet adopted by the
Kearney Family, Ireland
Permission is a tenant of the area, she is now happy
because only one toilet was working before, and now
with two toilets working the queue for the toilet will
be much less. This toilet was not working for three
years, and now she is happy that WASSUP is here to
March 2020 Volume 26 I Number 01
“Together
we make our
city great,
come be part
of our local
and global
community!”
www.plumbingafrica.co.za