According to one of the board members, Oupa Sithela, the project looks at where KwaThema was, where it is and where they hope to see it in the future.
“We want this area to be a tourist attraction because when people land at our airport, they need to be able to come and see the beauty of our area in the East Rand before even going to other parts of the province.
“We want to create parks that are self sustained and which will help in creating employment for locals, therefore these parks will have coffee shops and cultural programmes.
“There are also plans to create an aqua culture farm where there will be containers with water and fish which will be bred in a controlled environment, and these will then be sold as part of the strategy to sustain the parks,” he says.
The team will kick off this project with a competition.
Having identified five areas in which to develop parks, they will then ask the community to create teams of 15 people per team.
These teams will compete to develop the best park and win great prizes.
“The parks will belong to the community and will also help in decreasing issues of crime and drugs.
“Through it we also want people to do things for themselves and not to depend on the government,” says Fortune Lekalakala.
Daisy Thiloane says they want people to empower themselves and to take the future into their own hands.
“We are starting with parks and hope to develop venues for weddings, events, children’s activities and one where food can be sold.
“These must be a nice environment and people must be able to generate cash for themselves.
“Through this we are making KwaThema into a brand so even the Department of Tourism can send people to us,” she says.
