On Thursday, 30th March 2017, SMG South Coast, BMW Group Financial Services associates and American Waves for Water ambassadors delivered 350 water filters valued at R 400 000.00 to two Wards in the Ugu district, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. The Ugu district has been riddled with a water crisis for several years now. An array of challenges including poor infrastructure, corruption and a much needed upgrade to the water purification system, coupled with the current drought, means local community members don’t have access to clean drinking water. Therefore, water is currently being accessed from untreated community rivers and dams.
Reliance on water tankers to supplement the water shortage means the residents have, at times, gone several days without a single drop of water in the area. SMG South Coast in collaboration with BMW Financial Services Waves for Water, made it their personal mission to improve the lives of these community members by providing access to clean water through the distribution of 350 portable water filters to churches, schools, Crèches, Mobile clinics and other stakeholders within the area.
A Waves for Water ambassador, lead a demonstration with the community stakeholders to show how this innovative water filter solution has the potential to provide 10 000 people access to clean water, thus preventing waterborne diseases such as Cholera, Typhoid and E-Coli. After the demonstration, the SMG South Coast and BMW Financial Services staff gave one-on-one training to the community members to ensure they had a good understanding of how to use and maintain the filters.
Over the past few months BMW Group Financial Services has globally been on a quest to raise $500 000 in order to provide 10 000 water filters that can produce clean, drinkable water to over 1 000 000 people in need. To date, they have globally managed to raise $321 456 which has funded water filter rollouts in Mexico, China, Brazil and Thailand ensuring thousands of people are now able to access clean water for the first time.
South Africa was chosen for the 2017 Care4Water rollout.
With the ongoing donations and support from all the markets world-wide, the members of the Ugu district on the South Coast will now be able to safely drink water without the concern of water-borne diseases. Dealer Principal, Darren Staats carry’s the ethos that is prevalent throughout the SMG group and that to give back to the communities that you are in. “We need to do whatever we can, and as often as we can to improve the lives of the less fortunate people around us. I hope that we have achieved today goes a long way to help as many people as it can for as long as it can. It was a very humbling experience for me and my team and I would like to thank our partners that helped make it possible”
