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WPC: Community Plumbing Challenge
<< Continued from page 23
From left: Obed Kekae (director at
the Wassup Cooperative), Seán
Kearney (international project
manager at the IAPMO Group),
Rory Macnamara (organiser of
WPC 2016), Mduduzi Manana
(South African deputy minister
of higher education), and Errol
Gradwell (CEO of the Energy
and Water Sector Education and
Training Authority).
Education and employment
“This week has been a real eye-opener to meet
top South African professionals and learn from the
experience of other delegates from overseas,” Kekae
said. “People can clearly see the scale of what we have
achieved in Diepsloot and how our citizens are becoming
more responsible for their communal toilet facilities. We
want to make others aware that people continue to live
in these conditions, but also explain how we are finding
ways to help our government help our people, and create
education and employment in our community.”
indeed proved to be a crucial opportunity to conduct this
important, collective review of all achievements so far,
and to receive recommendations for sustainable growth
and improvement of the programme into the future.
This WPC 2016 presentation marked the conclusion
of CPC 2016 in Diepsloot, but next instalments of the
collaboration plus more updates from Wassup will be
shared in future editions of Plumbing Africa. PA
Seán Kearney is the international
project manager for the IAPMO Group.
“Nobody wants to pay for maintenance — it is ongoing
repairs plus the education of communities that are
so difficult to fund,” Van den Bussche said. “But
hosting the 2016 Community Plumbing Challenge and
attending WPC 2016 have raised the bar for Wassup
by introducing new skills, new partnerships and new
networks. From here, we need continued assistance
to drive the agenda of adequate sanitation for all, and
help to create the necessary jobs within state structures
that can oversee this maintenance and training into the
future.”
Community engagement
The CPC showcase at WPC 2016 provided another
timely interface to raise awareness of the agendas and
needs of individuals and groups that are involved in
community plumbing initiatives, not only in Diepsloot
and Cape Town, but also across South Africa. From an
international perspective, further developments were
explored among WPC stakeholders concerning future
team participation and sponsorship, plus bigger picture
strategies and objectives for continued development
and expansion of the programme in the years ahead.
As anticipated by the CPC organising team, WPC 2016
November 2016 Volume 22 I Number 9
Ruan Truter of Boland College works on a public toilet
that was transported from Diepsloot, Gauteng.
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