September 2, 2005
By Lucky Sindane
THERE was a mass clean up in Diepsloot on Friday, 2 September when a group of community members, together with staff from Pikitup, Johannesburg Water and the Ikageng Environmental Forum, embarked on a campaign to clean the informal settlements in the township's reception area on Friday, 2 September.
The objectives of the campaign were to form linkages with the community and promote a caring government, to promote safety and a healthy environment, to assess the level of service delivery and to educate residents about the role they can play in keeping the region clean.
"We want to bring hope to the people of Diepsloot as they are waiting for services such as houses to be delivered," said Patrick Shao, the City's deputy director: programme implementation in the department of housing.
"We have identified informal settlements because those are the most affected areas. We are also going to clean up a number of places around the city."
The formal township of Diepsloot has its fair share of people living in backyard shacks; an estimated 3 900 households live in backyard shacks in Diepsloot West.
Diepsloot West Extension 8, otherwise known as the Diepsloot Reception Area, has more than 7 000 households living in improper housing.
"The reason why we identified this area is because Pikitup trucks can't gain access to [it]. Therefore people litter on the streets," Shao said.
"This is not just a clean up campaign. We were distributing pamphlets that are aimed at educating people about our services and how to keep their areas clean. Johannesburg Water has also identified a number of pipe leaks that have to be fixed," he added.
"The area looked very bad before we cleaned it," said Rodgers Makhubela, the project co-ordinator of Ikageng Environmental Forum. "I am very happy that as we were cleaning more and more community members left whatever they were doing and helped us clean their area.
"We are going to make sure that this project is sustainable. We are working closely with Pikitup and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police in enforcing the by-laws - not by arresting people but by educating them about a clean and healthy environment," Makhubela said.
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