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High Praise for South African Junior Water Prize Winner

HRH Crown Princess Victoria (left) presents the 2003 Stockholm Junior Water Prize to Ms. Claire Reid from South Africa .

The Stockholm Junior Water Prize completed its 7th year of international competition in August when Ms. Claire Reid from South Africa received the 2003 Stockholm Junior Water Prize from Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden .

Ms. Reid, a student at St. Teresa's Mercy School in Gauteng Province , received the Prize during a formal ceremony at the Old Music Academy in Stockholm on August 12. Ms. Reid also received a USD 5,000 scholarship as this year's Prize recipient.

"I was filled with confidence in Claire, and her project is very impressive," said the South African Minister for Water Affairs Mr. Ronnie Kasrils. "This is a big step forward for the implementation of water conservation in order to ensure efficient and sustainable water supply in South Africa ."

The SJWP Nominating Committee, in its official motivation, honoured the young South African "for an innovative, practical, easily applicable technique for planting and successfully germinating seeds in water-scarce areas to improve rural and peri-urban livelihoods."

The Water Wise Reel Gardening System

In South Africa , where water is a scarce resource, Ms. Reid developed a so-called "Water Wise Reel Gardening" system to help farmers to be more ef­ficient in their use of water in growing crops. Her simple and effective seed-planting system where seeds are at­tached to newspaper strips, cuts down water usage by reducing water leakage into the soil. The paper strips keep seeds moist, so that they can germinate with­out wasting water.

Ms. Reids winning project was one of many outstanding projects in the international competition. This year 25 National Country Winners travelled to Stockholm from as far afield as Israel , Austral­ia , Argentina and the Ukraine . In addition, China , Cameroon and Russia joined as first-time entrants in the competition in 2003.

The Stockholm Junior Water Prize is presented each year to a high-school age student who has conducted an outstanding water-related project focusing on topics of environmental, scientific, social or tech­nological importance. SIWI administers the competition on behalf of the Stockholm Water Foundation. The international competition is sponsored globally by ITT Industries. Fortum is the Sponsor Host Stockholm .

Source:  Stockholm Water Front

A Forum for Global Water Issues

September 2003