In ongoing water outages at five Rhodes University residences, management has appealed to staff who have water at home to “adopt a student” so they can shower and do their laundry.
Offers from staff – and even concerned Grahamstown residents – to help students who have been left high and dry for the past two weeks began pouring in soon after dean of students Dr Vivian de Klerk issued her campuswide appeal yesterday morning.
“If you have water at home, and could offer to take students ‘under your wing’ and ensure that they have a decent shower and/or can do a load of laundry, it could make a huge difference to their quality of life right now.”
The appeal comes despite water supplies being restored to 41 other student residences and the rest of Grahamstown.
Desmond Tutu Hall administrator Cindy Jeggels, who was busy pairing students up with people who had made offers to help with a shower and a place to do laundry, said some had even volunteered transport.
“It has been very rough for the students who have not had any water.
“There has been a great response to the ‘adopt a student’ plan,” she said.
Students Dudu Majozi and Craig Dennison, who both stay in residences that have been dry for two weeks, yesterday said they were happy to finally be able to get their clothing washed.
Majozi said the unhygenic conditions had resulted in some people getting stomach ailments.
“Using other residences to shower and do laundry is very disruptive for everyone.”
Dennison said trying to share two toilets between 88 students was a nightmare.
“The ‘adopt a student’ idea is very cool, I signed up as soon as I saw the notice. My clothes really need a wash.”
One of those offering to adopt a student, Noëlle Obers, said he had been little inconvenienced by the outages, being only one day weeks.
“As our home is within walking distance of campus and there is someone at home to co-ordinate bathroom usage, sharing our water/bathroom for a short while will not be too much trouble.”
De Klerk said standard emergency measures – like using trucks to get supplies to specially installed tanks at the residences and supplying students with drinking water – would remain in place until the problem is solved.
Attempts to get comment from Makana Municipal spokesman Mncedisi Boma proved fruitless yesterday. — without water on in the past two on only one day in the past two weeks. "As our home is within walking distance of campus and there is someone at home to co-ordinate bathroom usage, sharing our water/bathroom for a short while will not be too much trouble."
De Klerk said standard emergency measures - like using trucks to get supplies to specially installed tanks at the residences and supplying students with drinking water - would remain in place until the problem is solved.
Attempts to get comment from Makana Municipal spokesman Mncedisi Boma proved fruitless yesterday.
Caption: WASHING UP: Rhodes University student Craig Dennison walks out of his campus residence yesterday with an armload of dirty laundry
Story and Picture by: DAVID MACGREGOR
Article Source: The Daily Dispatch