Joburg's water outages have made headlines across the country as frustrated residents took to the streets in protest. However In the southern suburbs some communities responded not only with placards, but with pumps, pipes and volunteerism - tackling municipal shortfalls through the barrel of a hosepipe.
In the quiet suburb of Ridgeway, south of Joburg, community leader and founder of the Southern Suburbs Community Forum and Water Project, Zubair Patel, watches as water flows into a mobile 1000L tanker. Printed on its side is a simple message: "The best form of charity is to give someone water"- a quote attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the ethos behind the community's water distribution project.
Nearby, residents arrive carrying empty bottles and buckets, forming a queue to access a hosepipe laid over the wall of a private home. A sign mounted on the wall sets out the rules for collection, formalising a process. In the queue, neighbours greet each other, building social connections through shared hardship. The process is well rehearsed and routine.
Patel started the small neighbourhood forum three decades ago after recognising the isolation that often accompanies suburban life. "Something was amiss. Suburbs have their own dynamics and people are very isolated. People stay to themselves and don't have much to do with each other. I didn't grow up like this. I'm not used to it. I'm going to do something about it," he said.
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The forum became a launch pad for several community initiatives and in 2022, following an extended water outage, Patel launched a borehole network that today connects more than 100 private homes across fifteen southern Johannesburg suburbs. Residents willing to share their water during prolonged municipal outages sign up to the network, reducing reliance on municipal tankers in the area.
A year later, when it became clear that some residents were too elderly or ill to collect water themselves, the community introduced a door-to-door delivery project to ensure no one was left behind. One resident offered a small bakkie, another provided a flow bin, and as word spread, so did the list of volunteers. Through collective funding, the community purchased a tanker and trailer to expand the initiative's reach.
As the tanker fills, a team of volunteers sets off with a list of residents in need, assisting those unable to access the homes listed in the borehole network. A mother and her two young children, one only wearing a nappy, wait outside a low-cost housing complex with an empty 10-litre bucket and two 5-litre bottles. For families without transport and with small children, travelling across suburbs to collect water is not always possible. Twelve-year-old volunteer Ismail Tayob helps fill her containers. The combined weight amounts to 20 kilograms, which she carries home in two trips.
Residents carry home the water collected from a community-owned and run water tanke. Picture: OUR CITY NEWS/Alaister Russell
The team then heads to the Annie Burger retirement village to check the water levels in the two JoJo tanks donated the previous year. Deliveries often continue late into the evening, sometimes finishing just before midnight.
At 4:30 AM, in her third-floor flat in the south of Johannesburg, Yusra Domingo starts her day by boiling large pots of water. Beside her is her 14-year-old son, who helps without being asked. The water is for him and his twin sisters, both twelve, so they can bathe before leaving for school. She helps them gather books and organise uniforms before taking her medication, tablets to help manage the constant pain and swelling caused by stage three liver cancer, diagnosed in 2023 after she was found unconscious at home by her children.
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Her complex, on an elevated hill, means that their water is often the first to go off and the last to return sometimes two full days after other residents in the area.
My immune system is completely tattered, I'm immunodeficient, because I have gone through chemotherapy so I can get an infection almost instantly"
"I'm sick, I can't really carry buckets of water, it takes a lot," said Domingo.
As the final containers are sealed, Patel and his volunteers pack up for the night in a City often defined by service delivery failures. And as uncertainty over water supply lingers in Johannesburg, residents in the south of the city are ready and have piloted a project that was formed out of frustration and solidified on preparation, organisation and generosity.
- This story first appeared in GroundUp
