Collen Mashawana Foundation teams up with govt to get rural communities clean water

As parts of South Africa continue to experience water shortages, the Collen Mashawana Foundation, which this month celebrates its 10th anniversary, has teamed up with the Department of Social Development (DSD) and AECI Water to assist rural communities.

The foundation recently visited Eastern Cape’s rural Kwa-Nontshinga in Centane, in partnership with the DSD and AECI Water, a company offering comprehensive solutions to customers in the public, industrial and mining sectors.

The visit formed part of the foundation’s recently launched water programme called Madi Ashu (Our Water) – assisting poor communities with no access to clean water by providing purified boreholes.

According to the Mashawana project, Madi Ashu has been focusing on supplying water to communities where there is a scarcity of clean water.

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“We aim to help communities – especially the elderly, people with disabilities and child-headed households. We have donated boreholes and water wheelbarrows.

“We will be providing safe and reliable drinking water to communities in dire need of water – hoping to improve on health and social issues that can be attributed to lack of clean and safe water.

“A collaboration between the state, the private sector and civil society is key in this drive,” said Johannesburg philanthropist and businessman Collen Mashawana.

AECI Water, he said, “joined hands with us to help address different basic services delivery challenges in communities.”

The foundation has been providing communities with clean water, and pledged to build a home for a grandmother living with eight children and three grandchildren a mud house without electricity and water. 

“There was also a social worker present during our visit and we were promised that the social worker will assist to resolve other challenges,” said Mashawana.

The foundation has for over a decade changed lives of millions of people in South Africa.

This has included adopting shelters and homes; providing food parcels, building hundreds of homes for the elderly, child headed-households and people living with disabilities.

Mashawana has been behind several ventures aimed at poverty alleviation, which have included distributing food parcels to the needy, and the “One-Brick-At-A-Time” project. 

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As South Africa’s housing backlog stands at a staggering 2.1 million, with an estimated 2.5 million people in dire need of homes, last year Mashawana launched a campaign to assist the homeless.

He aims to facilitate building 100 homes for the homeless, with members of the public contributing R2 000 towards one brick, to reach the target of 5 000 bricks.

The foundation, said Mashawana, was aligned with the DSD’s integrated development and welfare services programmes, having a signed partnership with government  “to help improve the lives of the poor”.

brians@citizen.co.za