Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers drilling boreholes to assist struggling Nelson Mandela Bay communities
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the impact of water sources and the use of boreholes on communities, including the use of water sources and biter stickers to spread water and the importance of drinking water in emergency situations. They emphasize the importance of safety and efficiency in their project, including the use of water for drilling and construction of infrastructure, and the cost of the work. The speakers emphasize the need for a decision process in the political process and emphasize the importance of cooperation in fixing leaks in buildings.
AI: Summary ©
The races on to find alternatives of water sources for Nelson
Mandela Bay before Day Zero hits. Gift of the givers is on the
ground drilling boreholes to assist communities. Founder, mts
Suleiman joins me now. Dr Suleman, good to speak to you, not that
it's a good afternoon, but incredible work that you're doing.
Talk to us about the drilling of boreholes and how many people it's
likely to impact.
New role. It's more than just drilling boreholes. It's a
combination of various interventions in the city itself.
The Fall started drilling. A few months ago, we took balls in three
different schools. We've now approached those schools to have
water to spread the water. In other words, we done pipelines
from those schools into the across the fence and into the community,
so people from around the communities could get whilst we're
visiting those schools that we had built previously, schools,
teachers, principals from neighboring schools came as a
building today in great difficulty. If there's any way we
can help, they'll keep the schools open during the holidays, and then
we started our own building from last week, Monday. There's been
phenomenal success for the balls. We put in 20 Alpha primary,
getting about 200,000 liters a day from those two balls. But the big
success was in Malabar primary, because in the right area, the
right type of geology, the right type of rocks, the right type of
water, and half a million liters a day from that bowl. We're busy,
and we just reach another 8000 meters per day. In the Jose
Pearson TV hospital, there's an emergency now to drill in
Elizabeth Duncan psychiatric hospital, those patients are going
to be severely affected without water. We've been called by
Provincial Hospital as well as by Livingston hospital, and we're
going to see what we can do there. So the balls we're putting up, you
know, we've earmarked different areas, predominantly in the red
zones, and predominantly where the rocks are good and where the water
yields will be good and where the water quality would be good at the
same time whilst doing that, brilliant exports. And of course,
just let me explain a little further. When you draw a drill a
ball in the school, for example, in Malabar primary school, it
means 1100 children benefit, the teaching staff benefit, and they
can take the water from them to their homes where they come from.
Now there's a huge spread in that school. There's children come from
busses and from eight different areas, as well as many busses from
different areas. And in addition to that, there's four informal
settlements around the school that can draw water from there, as well
as a formal server also in the area. So that's what we try to do.
We get to many areas as soon as possible, as quickly as possible,
as efficiently as possible. That's the one aspect. The second aspect
is, in most cities or towns that you go to, there are walls that
have been drilled some time ago. In my first meeting with the
municipality last week, Tuesday, Tuesday. Ask them, do we have such
bowls that have been drilled and not being used? And they came
back, and they found a list, and they sent teams with us to
identify those balls, the ones that are in the perfect areas,
which are practical. We already start opening them, and we will
put just have to put pumps in, and we can provide water to several
areas. Then whilst doing that, we got a call from the cleaner and
document what's going to happen to the dogs. And there's no water
yet, but we have a borehole. So we went in, looked at the borehole,
and, you know, we opened it, and again, we can spread the water.
And the last big thing that has happened, of course, the other
thing is, we will be putting Georgia tanks for the municipality
in all the areas that the water tankers will go and fill the
water, and even in those areas where underground pipes are going
to work, we're going to put the Georgia things there. And then a
good thing happened. Late last week, said a boss, the salt
people, called us, and they said, Look, from the desalination plant,
they can give us 500,000 liters a day. So with that water, what
we've already got and what we busy drilling with, we should be able
to have soon more than 2 million liters of water per day as an
addition to add to the city. Well, I suppose the next question would
be just, how much water do we actually require? If we're able to
get 2 million liters per day, how far will this actually go?
If you take it as 10 liters to our community, it's 200,000 people who
can benefit, especially for drinking, for just for taking
medication. Of course, they can't bath with it. They can't feed a
plants with it. They can't do clothing with it. But for the
essential for survival, just to drink water and to take the
medication, and for cooking, 10 liters per person will go to
200,000 people at least. In addition to that, of course, we
are targeting what bottle water, you know, which is not very it's
not a sustainable solution, but it's important in the emergency
situation where all age homes and people from physically and
mentally challenging institutions, you don't expect them to stay in
the queue. That's not possible. How do they go to the water
tanker? How do they go to the Georgia tents? So we are building
a list of those institutions and to give them bottled water to last
them week at a time. And we already stockpiling the bottled
water to do that. So that's the next day. And then, of course, you
ask me, How many, how much water is needed? It's estimated that two
80 million liters of water required per day. The noise had
that facility.
Has about two 10 million liters, but a lot of water is being lost
through leaks. So now there's teams from the business sector and
from the municipality to try to fix those leaks. And we're also
making a call to residents, please check your toilet system, check
your tap, check your garden, senior yard. If there are leaks,
please fix them up. Every liter we save now means a little more for
tomorrow.
Now we have to ask about the cost, Dr Suleman, of all this work that
you're doing. I mean, it comes at a it comes at a sum. Are you able
to share those numbers with us? Firstly and secondly, how is this
process actually funded?
It's Sunday, three. It started off last week, Friday before, before I
went into into function, I met some of my donors, spoke to them
about it, and instantly there's a sun point that it is 5 million
Rand to say you can start you work on an average of 400 to 500,000 a
bowl. Now that's not the drilling only you know, people think it's
so expensive, it's not only the drilling, it's the drilling, the
use test, the water test, the Georgia tents, the pipelines, the
tanks, the cement, the hydrology fees, the cement blocks, the
Georgia tents that go on the piece. Sometimes you get six and
how deep you go, the type of water you find
break. Does it not drill but break, not break? All those are
factors. So we say average of four to 500,000 ran a ball on every
ball that we save money. It means we earmark 10 for the beginning.
We can drill another two or three or four, depending on how much we
save. Georgia tenants could cost anything between five and 8000 men
on
5000 liter tank. Of course, we get special prices from Georgia
themselves. They also donate to us. Unfortunately, in this last
visit to Benson, Mandela Bay, Metro, Volvo, I mean, bw is
looking at him as 30 tanks, if promises, 30 Vodacom, 55 Coke, 20
spa, 40 and other companies are coming on board. Then the
desalination water is not costing anything. Saliva boss is giving it
their cost, and they're also going to give us 5000 by five liter
bottle water. In addition to that, we need tankers to carry the
water. It's expensive. Coke is providing us three water tankers,
huge ones, 35,000 meter carrying capacity. What drivers and they
will pay the fuel costs. And in addition to that, of course,
they're giving us 20 Georgia tanks. And as a partnership,
they're also drilling boreholes in India. It's not where we are, so
we to augment each other, and they've drilled three so far. So
all this augmentation and support cooperation generally helps the
city.
What? Well, Dr Sullivan, you running quite the the operation
here, where is the
Nelson Mandela Bay municipality during this entire process?
Because it would seem that a huge amount of what's happening to save
Nelson Mandela Bay is being run or put together by third parties, if
you
will, the municipality, we have to separate only two components. One
is the politicians. And I mean, they've been having a problem with
them for the last 15 months. Some people saved 15 years. You get the
system right when there is no agreement, no decisions are taken,
no processes are followed. People can't make they can't buy a
student and spend money. It's difficult to buy things that they
need. So that's the one process where there's a political issue on
the other side, we have the civil servants, led by Betty Martin, was
a water engineer and his team of engineers after I spoke to the
municipality back Tuesday in that meeting, of course, the media was
there, the deputy mayor, and even the municipal manager and other
members of the council. It was fantastic. There was full
cooperation and acceptance of what we were going to do without
interference. And then while speaking there, very much. And
then said, I liked my engineering team to have a discussion with
you, and the next morning, on Wednesday, the entire team came.
We worked out things together, and we said, let's share the
responsibility. It's no point now discussing who should have done
what, when and how. There's no time we have a city to save. And
we said, okay,
tell us. We will drill balls. Give us your balls that we've got
somewhere else. We'll put the pumps inside them, and we had full
cooperation. Because instant they gave us a team, they gave us a GPS
called coordinates. They said, yes, the board, you decide what
you want to do. That is said. Another reason I'm saying is
because if there's no decision in the council and no one is made
available, they can't spend they can't act. Their hands are tight.
So even as engineers and civil servants, they want to do
something, they can't do that because there's no funding for
that.