Food, Water & Energy Security
How these high schoolers are tackling the drinking water crisis
High schoolers Jorja Annabelle Lee and Onalenna Mafora know a thing or two about the dangers of poorly filtered drinking water. This inspired them to design a filtration and purification system and enter the South African Youth Water Prize.
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“A few years back, I was absent from school for two weeks because I drank the tap water and got a horrible stomach infection,” recalls Lee.
Mafora witnesses the daily leaks and disrepair of a municipal water plant near her home.
“What inspired us is what we see in our communities – how much everybody needs to spend on bottled water when we should be able to trust the water from our taps.”
Instead of designing an all-new system, Lee and Onalenna Mafora worked to improve the one they knew best – that of their hometown, the Sol Plaatje Local Municipality. Their invention bagged them the first prize in the Northern Cape leg of the South African Youth Water Prize recently.
“Our system uses multiple stages of purification to target the microscopic bacteria and chemical residues that often slip through the system,” explains Mafora.
“But what sets it apart is the real-time monitoring, because in current systems, water only gets tested occasionally. The real-time monitoring can detect problems immediately so they can be solved before our water reaches our homes.”
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Tackling water pollution
The Department of Water and Sanitation’s (DWS) authoritative surveys of the country’s water supply systems, the Blue, Green and No Drop reports of 2023 and 2024, found the highest percentage of poor or critically performing drinking water systems in the Northern Cape, at 87%, compared to 48% in 2014.
An even more concerning finding is that nearly half of South Africa’s municipal water is unsafe to drink. Furthermore, the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the United Nations and Yale University rank South Africa’s drinking water quality among the lowest internationally.
One of the many ways in which the DWS is tackling water pollution is by involving communities and the youth in finding solutions.
The South African Youth Water Prize is a prestigious national competition for grade nine to 11 learners, hosted by the DWS in partnership with the Stockholm International Water Institute. Through this competition, the DWS hopes to get young people interested in following careers in science and technology.