September 5, 2007
By Lesego Madumo
LOVE Yeoville – keep it clean. With this slogan its rallying call, the Gauteng department of agriculture, conservation and environment (GDACE) is working in Yeoville with the Johannesburg Development Agency and the Yeoville Stakeholder Forum on one of a number of pilot projects, stemming from its broader environmental awareness campaign, to encourage residents to become activists for a litter-free province of gold.
The Yeoville Litter-Free campaign has been engineered to raise awareness among residents to keep their suburb clean. It is directly targeted at people living, working and visiting in the suburb, says Maurice Smithers, a director in GDACE and the operational head of the campaign.
Raising awareness of keeping the environment clean
It was launched on 5 June, International Environment Day, and Smithers says it envisages changing the behaviour of its target audience in relation to littering, and creating greater awareness of and involvement in broader environmental issues.
"To back this up, we will be working with municipalities to create an effective waste management practice by waste management companies and agencies that will be supportive of the campaign," he adds. “We will also be looking at the enactment of common litter-free legislation across the province and the effective enforcement of litter by-laws by Metro Police and the SAPS.
Extending the plan
While the campaign covers the whole province, it is at present receiving special attention in greater Yeoville, thanks to the support of the Johannesburg Development Agency which is involved in an upgrading programme in the area. But other activities are being planned for Joubert Park in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Mogale City. "We will work with [other] municipalities, the corporate sector and civil society to achieve cleanliness."
If the campaign proves successful, Smithers points out, the amount of litter collected by waste management entities on streets will be reduced. This, in turn, will result in savings that can be redirected to more useful purposes, and an improved image of Gauteng.
While the department is targeting cleanliness by the time of the 2010 Fifa World Cup™ as a tool to enforce the vision of a litter-free Gauteng and reach its target audience, the campaign will continue way beyond 2010”, he explains. This is because littering is a permanent possibility in any society and therefore needs permanent attention to prevent it happening.
"The campaign was initiated in recognition of the fact that there is a litter problem in the province." Prior to it there had not been any sustained awareness programme since the 1980s. Smithers adds that it also serves to expose the multitudes who migrate to South Africa every day – and eventually arrive in Joburg – to the culture of cleanliness around the province and it’s cities and towns.
JDA help
The Yeoville campaign was born out of a partnership forged between the province, the City and the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and is similar to the recent "Love the Zoo - keep it clean" campaign in Johannesburg, and the "Love your school - keep it clean" events happening all over the province.
"The JDA supports all initiatives which rehabilitate our city into a clean, safe and prosperous world-class city, and this campaign supports [such an] objective," notes Sammy Mafu, the executive manager in the agency's marketing and communications division.
The JDA's involvement in this provincial campaign entails converting it to a local level, running it in Yeoville and later extending it to other suburbs.
Mafu says that the agency plans to expand it beyond social consciousness, "into the realm of by-law enforcement and a functioning improvement plan". Stakeholders include the Yeoville Stakeholders Forum (YSF), ward councillors, the South African Police Service (SAPS), City Parks, City Power and Pikitup, among others.
There are three prominent billboards and hundreds of posters of prominent local residents, such as the ward councillor, the head of the police station in the area, the head of a Congolese school and other community members - all activists in the campaign - have been placed around the suburb.
"The people were selected as well-known community members who are using their status … to get the message across to the community," Smithers says. "This is a strategy we want to use in all areas and provincially as a way of helping people to identify with the campaign." Smithers himself appears on one of the posters as he is a resident in the area and is chairperson of the Yeoville Stakeholder Forum, the community structure working with the JDA and GDACE on the campaign.
A further element to the campaign is an awareness-raising process in the schools in the area.
Clean Gauteng
The campaign, Smithers says, aims to achieve a totally clean province by 2010. "[It] will have to continue beyond that point if the cleanliness is to be sustained. We are concerned [about] behaviour change; and the message needs to be reinforced."
The Yeoville Litter-Free campaign has been engineered to raise awareness among residents to keep their suburb clean.
The Yeoville Litter-Free campaign has been engineered to raise awareness among residents to keep their suburb clean
Since its inception, he notes, the campaign has attained tremendous support from the community. "Already a councillor in an adjoining ward has indicated that she would like to have posters in her area too."
GDACE will soon extend the campaign to all parts of Joburg and the rest of the province and discussions have been held with bus company Putco and rail utility Metrorail to brand the campaign at bus depots and on buses, at railways stations and on trains.
Over and above the Yeoville Litter-Free campaign, the JDA is chairing an infrastructure upgrade project in that suburb that involves overhauling the park, and erecting streetlights on Rocky and Raleigh Streets, between Joe Slovo Drive and De La Rey Street. The library will be moved to new premises and the swimming pool will be upgraded.
"We are also funding the establishment of a voluntary central improvement district that will help business property owners to share responsibility for the continued upkeep of the area," Mafu says.
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