KNYSNA NEWS - Over one hundred young people from Knysna and its surrounds received certificates at a graduation ceremony after completing a five-day course in basic plumbing.
The graduation ceremony, held on Friday 1 November at the Hornlee Civic Centre, was overseen by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) and its partners, Knysna municipality, training organisation Asivikelane and Lixil Africa.
The basic plumbing training is one of the interventions by the DWS and the municipality to improve the water situation in Knysna. According to the Western Cape head of the DWS, Ntombizanele Bila-Mupariwa, the rationale behind the plumbing course was to create a "water conservation
army" with basic plumbing skills that the municipality could use to help fix water leaks and solve other problems.
Cherry on top
The training in part involved the trainees fixing old and new cisterns, but the cherry on top was that they were trained in how to work with with crimp pipes.
The training provider from building materials manufacturer Lixil, Igsaan Hugo, said the "crimp pipe solution" prevented people from making illegal connections because a crimp pipe was not the regular pipe they were used to, and could buy easily.
He said the benefits "of this pipe is that a civilian cannot go to a hardware store to buy fittings to cut this pipe; they will need certain equipment such as the crimp or rimming tools which they will not get from the shop".
'Save more water'
"That will deter anybody from making illegal connections. That on its own will save the government more water," Hugo said.
Knysna's mayor, Aubrey Tsengwa, said the graduates would be placed in the municipality's database, and some of them would be called upon to help deal with plumbing problems.
Start small businesses
He said because the municipality could not provide work to all the graduates, it would assist some of them to start their own small businesses, another skill that the graduates acquired during the course.
One of the course participants, Fregan Galant, said with his certificate, he was ready to start his own enterprise.
'Form a cooperative'
"I will talk to some of the guys who were at this course with me, so that we can look at forming a cooperative - so that we can approach the municipality as an organised body," said Galant.
Another graduate, Sivuyile Tinise, said he had been doing plumbing work since 2009, but the training would allow him to take his business further.
He would now "knock on the municipality's door and other doors" to offer his improved services.
Tsengwa encouraged the graduates to ask the municipality for assistance, even though, with their training, they were all likely to get jobs.
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