By Nangamso Mabindla
19 August 2005

DUNCAN Village, once one the filthiest areas in Buffalo City, is now a clean settlement. The change is thanks to the pilot project, Managing Water Quality Effect in Settlement, which was launched in Duncan Village C-section last year.

C-section was a test case to evaluate the possibility of rolling out the project in other areas in South Africa. The cleanup involved the municipality, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the local community.

It aims to improve the health status of settlements in cities across South Africa.

Andrew Lucas, from the national department, said there were a lot of benefits for the local authorities and the residents.

"With this project we involve communities in the cleaning up of their settlements so that they take ownership. This will, in turn, lead to a cleaner environment for the city and citizens.

"It's a cross-cutting issue that needs all departments from health to engineering to work together in educating communities," he added.

Through the project, communities are also educated about the dangers of dumping waste in rivers.

Despite its success, residents of C-section face other threats to their wellbeing.

One of these is sanitation, as there are very few toilets serving many households. Because of this some toilets are blocked regularly.

"In response to this we educated people about ways to avoid blocking these toilets. Some of them were amazed because they did not know you could avoid that," Lucas added.

If residents were taught the importance of hygiene, it would save the municipality money. "The City would not have to send someone frequently to fix the toilets because residents would know how to keep them working nicely," he said.

The project also aimed to create short-term employment for some residents. "Instead of the City coming here to collect refuse, we can create chances for people to collect their own refuse, clean their own streets and fix their own toilets."

This would work out cheaper for local authorities as residents would take good care of their settlements.

"The City only collects refuse that is in black bags. For Duncan Village that means uncollected refuse. So if we can try to get funds to employ some of the residents to collect refuse, we can make sure we have a cleaner Duncan Village."

Residents used municipal black bags for other tasks, such as covering their shacks when it rained.

"Because of this, refuse piles up and that is where we need to have residents employed to keep their own sections clean. We are really hoping that other people will buy into our idea so that we can spread this to other parts of the city," Lucas said.

He called on the municipality to assist the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the residents of Duncan Village to make the pilot project a success so that it could be spread easily to other communities in Buffalo City.