One of the City’s Water and Sanitation Directorate’s 2026 grant funding recipients, Bantubanye Community Development, is helping residents in Khayelitsha to minimise water wastage through education. They are also tackling safety risks at communal toilets through community-led interventions.
The initiative forms part of the City’s ongoing collaboration with 22 community organisations to improve water and sanitation services across Cape Town.
‘Through the efforts of Bantubanye Community Development, residents were encouraged to take up affordable greywater recycling for growing food gardens and shown how to report faults correctly, obtaining reference numbers on the system to enable City teams to respond quickly,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, on a recent visit to one of the community dialogue sessions in Makhaza.
As a result, more than 2 000 residents in Makhaza, Ireland, Mpolweni, Nkanini, Ndlovini and Town 2 informal settlements have been positively impacted by a series of projects including:
1. Installation of solar lights at shared toilets
By the end of June 2026, the NPO will complete the installation of solar motion-sensor lights at unsafe locations to reduce the risk of gender-based violence during night-time toilet use.
2. Community greywater demonstration garden
Establishing greywater systems to practically demonstrate how households can safely reuse water for home gardening and supplying basic gardening tools/seedlings to participating households.
3. Water monitoring and reporting teams
Training local volunteers to identify leaks, broken taps and blocked toilets, creating a simple reporting system linked to the City and conducting regular monitoring visits with monthly progress updates.
‘Through the funding received from the City, we’ve successfully run community clean-up campaigns, sanitation awareness programmes and water conservation initiatives in Makhaza. The support enabled the organisation to address illegal dumping, unblock drainage systems, promote responsible waste disposal and educate residents on protecting water and sanitation infrastructure.
‘Our project has also improved environmental conditions, reduced flood risks during the rainy season and seen great community participation in cleaning up our shared spaces,’ said Odwa Nakani, Project Director of Bantubanye Community Development.
