September 13, 2005
By Anish Abraham
ARMED with sticks, rubbish bags and gloves, and kitted out in green City Parks T-shirts, high school learners from Alexandra worked tirelessly under the hot sun, helping to clean up a section of the Jukskei River as part of City Parks's celebration of International Clean-up Week.
An initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme, International Clean-up Week has attracted 35 million volunteers from more than 100 countries over the past 13 years, making it one of the largest community-based environmental campaigns in the world.
Joburg's environmental unit will mark the week from 12 to 16 September, focusing on city watercourses that need cleaning.
Cleaning up the river through Alexandra township
The first event in the campaign was at Jukskei Park in Alexandra, where City Parks staff and the community cleaned up the river.
Volunteers included learners from local schools Alexandra High School, East Bank High School and Kwabhekilanga High School, members of the Soul Foundation and the Plastics Federation of South Africa, and 15 employees from City Parks's conservation team.
Pollution resulting from human activities, including domestic waste, industrial effluent and silt deposits from illegal storm water connections, all end up in Johannesburg's streams and rivers.
Community
"Community involvement is the key to long-term environmental care and the campaign can go a long way towards creating awareness and getting the local communities involved," said Jenny Moodley, the spokesperson for City Parks.
Cebo Mhlongo, an aquatics specialist at the unit, was on hand to co-ordinate the efforts of the 60 learners, 16 members from the participating organisations and the environmental team.
He said City Parks helped eco-clubs at the local schools with capacity building and sharing information. These clubs bring together environmentally conscious learners and link them with other organisations involved in conservation.
"We also work with area-based conservation groups that are focussed on greening," Mhlongo said.
Soul Foundation
A non-profit organisation, Soul (Save our Universal Land) Foundation is working towards encouraging a culture of waste management and recycling in the area.
"We would like to set up a recycling facility that would see waste turned into a commodity," said Kim Kieser, the chief executive.
In addition, she would like to see the community become more active in water testing and monitoring along the city's watercourses.
Kenneth Mabila, a conservation specialist at City Parks, gave the learners an insight into the effort that is required to clean up the environment. "There is still dumping, planting of alien plant species and ignorance of wildlife present," Mabila said.
He also gave them some reasons for preserving the river, including improving the quality of life and encouraging wildlife to take up residence along the river.
"It is your river," he concluded.
Vivian Malema, the manager for environmental education at City Parks, had similar advice, telling the learners they had to work to reduce the amount of waste each person produced.
Adopt a river
She proposed that eco-clubs from each school "adopt" a section of the river, for which they would be responsible.
The learners took to the river banks with enthusiasm, and two hours they and the other participants had collected about 100 bags of litter from in and around the river.
According to Otto Lekgoathi, a teacher at Alexandra High, less litter was collected from the river this time around compared with the last clean up, meaning more people were becoming aware of the need to preserve the environment.
"The Jukskei brings life to the people of Alex. We have to take care of it and sustain it," she said.
Lekgoathi commended City Parks for organising such an initiative, saying it gave learners an idea of what career opportunities existed in nature conservation and environmental management.
Mhlongo is confidant the learners will make a meaningful contribution to keeping the portion of the Jukskei River that goes through Alexandra clean. "Both [they] and the teachers seem very determined and enthusiastic," he said.
As part of International Clean-up Week celebrations, City Parks will co-ordinate other clean-up operations between its conservation team, non-governmental organisations and learners from local schools.
Klipspruit: 14 September, from 11.45am to 2pm; Lake View Primary School, Klipspruit; clean up two kilometres of the Klipspruit wetlands.
Bosmont: 16 September, from 11.45am and 2pm; Westbury Recreation Centre, Westbury; litter control and debris removal along two kilometres of a local stream in Bosmont.
For more information contact Cebo Mhlongo of City Parks on 011 683 8234, or Kim Kieser of Soul Foundation on 011 804 4369.
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