It has been a year and half since residents of Scheming Village in Mapela started enjoying free clean water.
The water has been available every day since the start of the project.
Thanks to Anglo American Platinum, the project has turned out to be a secure and sustainable way to get water to the people.
The bigger plan is to implement this project in all the 42 villages in Mapela.
Jason Robbertse from Hall Core Water Mapela — a company co-owned by the community to sustainably increase water supply in the area — said they have started discovering other aquifers and are busy testing that water to make sure that it is drinkable.
"Obviously, if the water needs treatment then we treat it to make sure it's safe for people to drink," said Robbertse.
He added that if a borehole is managed properly it can last forever.
The good news is that not even electricity load shedding can affect the water in Scheming village because they do not need electricity to pump it out.
The house sheltering the pump has a solar panel roof which serves as a source of power.
Solar gets it power from the sun and Robbertse said the project works well with solar power because Mapela is usually sunny and hot.
For those planning to steal the solar panel, he said "to steal the panel, you'll have to break it, which then means there is no use for it".
Robbertse said that once they sorted out the power, they looked at getting technology into the hole.
"You have to manage your aquifer, switch it on and off so that it gets time to recharge.
"We got really clever and put probes down the hole so that if the water gets low, then it switches off automatically and will switch it back on once it is done recharging," he said.
