Non-profit organisation Wishing Well International Foundation hosted a 10-day expedition to rural areas in Hazyview in Mpumalanga and Mathenjwa in KwaZulu-Natal to deploy over 100 water filters to homes and schools.
The aim of the project is to provide people with clean, safe drinking water.
The Bio-Foam filter is a relatively simply and affordable technology consisting of two buckets which use gravity to push water through a filtering system – purifying water obtained from boreholes, rain tanks, rivers and dams.
Local pastor Samuel Chauque led the team to more than 10 homes over a day and a half to deploy the first 30 filters.
On the fifth day of the trip we travel through Swaziland for sight-seeing and as a short cut to get to Mathenjwa in KwaZulu-Natal for the second area of deployment.
This second deployment is specifically aimed at schools.
Homes and schools are far apart and it seems government has just started building roads – for the most part it’s gravel road.
Principal of Mayaluka Primary School Thembeni Mathenjwa says some of the children at the school have no identity documents as many of them have one parent from Swaziland and another from South Africa.
For one, not only is clean water a scarcity, but water itself is rare.
Guzman also notes the often tiring and long process of going through government to run an expedition such as this one.