The Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Rejoice Mabudafhasi, officially launched the Fognet Project at Mphephu Resort in Nzhelele last Wednesday.

Mabudafhasi said the project was her department’s intervention to provide water to communities that did not have access to water, without impacting on the environment. She said the objective of the project was to utilise natural resources and in this instance it was weather-related to meet the needs of the communities.

“Water is one of the scarce and critical resources for all of us and as the Ministry of Water and Environmental Affairs we is thrilled and encouraged to become aware of scientific potential to address social problems,” she said.

Mabudafhasi commended the researchers and pioneers who have been involved in the project, Prof Jana Olivier from Unisa and Professors Johan van Heerden and Hannes Rautenbach from the University of Pretoria, as well as the people from Vondo village who embraced the project and worked closely with the University of Pretoria to ensure its success.

“In the recent years, we have all been listening and hearing about the effects of climate change and how it impacts on our day-to-day lives. We are learning new ways to do things in order to ensure we protect natural resources for them to continue to sustain us. It is encouraging to know that there are more opportunities to improve our livelihood in ways that are not harmful to the environment,” Mabudafhasi said.

The Fog Project is running in two primary schools, namely Tshanowa and Tshiavha. The project was done in partnership with the South African Weather Service, University of Pretoria, Limpopo Department of Education and the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs

The event was linked to a two-day career workshop through which the learners are exposed to different scientific experiments in order to be familiarized with the process involved in preparing predictions and weather reports. The event was addressed by Prof Hannes Rautenbach from the University of Pretoria, who said that the project started with research on water harvesting from clouds in 1995 and the first project was erected at Tshanowa Primary school.

He said the Fognet project was able to provide adequate water to the community of Tshanowa in the mountainous area of Vondo.

One of the pioneers of researcher into water harvesting from clouds, Prof Johan van Heerden, said water harvesting had been tested and was regarded as the cleanest , most pure water in the world.

The principal of Tshanowa Primary, Tshililo Netshifhefhe, said the water shortage at the school and the whole community was now a thing of the past, following the implementation of the project at the school. He said learners used to collect water from the rivers as there is no water in the area. "The time of learners and community members traveling long distances to rivers to collect water is now a thing of the past, following the erection of the project," Netshifhefhe said.