World Water Day is celebrated globally on the 22nd of March every year and focusses on the importance of fresh water. Access to water is a human right and is crucial to sustainable development in terms of health and nutrition, gender equity, the creation of livelihoods and more. This precious, life-giving resource is scarce in many parts of the world – due mainly to pollution, global warming, urbanisation and agriculture.
Core to our hearts at Focus on iThemba is our desire to partake in creating a sustainable future in which we are all aware of our interdependency and relationship with nature and are active in adding value to the world around us.
Our beautiful iThemba Campus, situated in Hillcrest, KwaZulu-Natal, receives an abundance of rain and mist, providing plenty of water to our wetland, gardens and school fields, and to our borehole which supplies drinking and plumbing water to all Campus entities. Sharing our heart for sustainable water solutions is our hydration partner, Topia Water, who specialises in customising water optimisation solutions with a conservation focus in mind. Through this partnership we have been able to install three hydration stations (the fourth to follow soon) across Campus for the benefit of staff and children as part of our #TreadLightly Campaign. These stations allow us to offer clean, delicious tasting water from the borehole while eliminating the need for single-use plastic water bottles.
We are blessed in the sense that our relationships with our partner Pre-Schools afford us the opportunity to extend our reach and work with them in finding suitable solutions to problems faced. Water security is vitally important for pre-schools and unfortunately, reliance upon municipally plumbed water, especially in the communities we work in, cannot always provide this. Because of this, the installation of a JOJO Tank and water filtration system, through our partnership with JOJO Tanks, has been a priority in each of our transformation projects and something we look forward to implementing further in years to come. This rainwater harvesting gives these Schools access to water for drinking, flushing toilets, watering of vegetable gardens and cleaning of fresh produce, allowing Principals to save money and allocate funds elsewhere. For this we thank our donors who share our vision and make the provision of these tanks and filtration systems possible.
Every drop counts! The power is in our hands to make responsible choices that save water, and every action – big or small – makes a difference. We are intentional about fostering a culture of deep care for and good stewardship of our natural environment and this World Water Day we would like to encourage everyone, our staff, friends, partners and readers to join us in saving water! Together we are stronger.