Cape Town - To spread the message of water preservation to improve hygiene and feed the hungry, Cape Town-based NGO, Save Our Schools, launched a long-term project called “Water in the Sky”.
The project is a pilot (at Bloekombos Secondary School in Kraaifontein) aerial pipeline solution with an integrated vertical garden and rainwater harvesting scheme, that is suitable and specifically designed for informal communities.
It makes use of rainwater harvesting systems, with the water collected going back into vertical and horizontal vegetable gardens at the school and will be used in new hand-washing infrastructure at the school to improve the state of hygiene.
SOS CEO Shelley Humphreys said the vegetables from these gardens would go into the feeding scheme at the school and be given to the learners to take home. They hope to expand the programme in the local community so they can start their own micro-businesses where they harvest and sell their vegetables.
The project also has an educational component, as a group of 12 students at Bloekombos Secondary School, known as SOS Harvesters, each received a harvester’s kit, learned about water preservation, agricultural practices and they will tend to the gardens.
At the project launch, these learners planted vegetable seeds and waterwise plants at the school. The learners were then taken on hot air balloon experience with Remax, a supporting brand, to view their crops from above.
Leader of the SOS harvesters at the school, Grade 10 learner Somlia Swelindawo said: “I am excited for this journey because we get to learn more about water, gardening sustainably and feeding our community. My team and I are very excited because this is something completely new to us, which we now get to explore.”
Swelindawo said the communities around them did not have food security, so this initiative would go a long way in helping to address that as well.
Humphreys explained: “The reason it is called ‘Water in the Sky’ is because we are not only harvesting rainwater, but our equipment will be in the sky… Imagine an upside down umbrella which will be on a mast, attached to water storage tanks, which have mesh inside them and solar panels very high up.
“These will be connected with aerial pipes going from one mast to another so that when the storage tank is full, it can be pushed into another storage tank that will collect that rainwater, rather than it being wasted.”
A number of brands supporting this project to establish vegetable gardens include the Remax Foundation, Nestle, Puma, AGT Foods, and Hallmark. Xylem Watermark was also assisting the project by bringing their expertise, knowledge and innovative products on board.