Tag Archives: water

Wising up to water conservation

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CPUT students in the Faculty of Business and Management Sciences have embarked on a campaign to spread awareness of the water crisis in the Western Cape.

To activate the Marketing Management Department’s #everydropcounts Waterwise Project on District Six Campus Advertising 2 students sold muffins alongside the campaign’s sticker which they designed.

They also walked around the campus in groups supplying bottled water to their fellow students as they encouraged them to save water. Additionally, the students designed posters on which they wrote their own motivational messages.

Business and Management Sciences Dean Prof Paul Green thanked the students for participating in the project and commended them for spreading awareness about being waterwise. Green reminded everyone that despite the falling winter rains local dams were not yet full.

Student Marcelino Gonsalves said they produced two videos showing the campaign’s sticker and a desert that will soon be uploaded to YouTube and broadcast on the screens on CPUT campuses.

Panduleni Mntu was part of the group which baked the muffins and attached the stickers to them. “Everyone involved in the campaign participated in selling the muffins and in less than two hours we sold everything,” said Panduleni.

Advertising lecturer Jody Daniels said the students explained the campaign’s aims and objectives in a UniFM radio interview.

Daniels said while the project was voluntary it also gained the students extra marks.  He added that the students were studying advertising agencies and campaigns in the first semester and the project challenged them to apply the skills they learned to create an actual advertising campaign.

“We are using our theory to deliver a community message on campus on how to use water responsibly,” he said.

The City of Cape Town pledged support for the students’ campaign when it was launched last semester.

Water Conservation Head at City of Cape Town Thembisa Gqamane said the City is now running the #thinkwater campaign which is aimed at encouraging people to save water which will hopefully lead to decreased consumption and drought awareness among the public.

SWEET: The sticker and muffin designed and made by students in the Faculty of Business and Management Sciences.

 

Quality water for all

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Proper management of water resources will result in quality water for all.

This was the key thrust of the 2nd Annual Seminar of WRM Partnerships in Action, which was held in Somerset West.

The seminar was jointly hosted by the Centre for Water and Sanitation Research (CWSR) at CPUT, the University of the Western Cape and the Breede-Gouritz Catchment Management Agency (BGCMA).

These three entities are collaborating in research and training in the areas of water resource assessment, catchment studies, water and agriculture, water services and sanitation as well as environment and water sustainability.

The collaboration is one of the most notable water research ventures to be undertaken in the Western Cape.

Addressing delegates, CEO of BGCMA, Phakamani Buthelezi, says he welcomes the partnerships.

“It is our ideal that we should have pristine rivers. This is not possible if we don’t have partners and engage in new ways of doing things,” he says.

“We must invest in research and think out of the box,” says Buthelezi, whose organisation oversees a number of water management areas in the Western Cape Province.

The collaboration between the entities kicked off in 2013, and Prof Alvin Lagardien, Director of CWSR says they looked at BGCMA needs when structuring the partnerships.

Lagardien says they have made progress in all the areas of collaboration, thanks to dedicated researchers and funding provided by the Netherlands based organisation, Nuffic.

“We are proud of how far we have come,” says Lagardien.