SDCEA celebrates 21 years
Twenty-one years on, and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance is growing from strength to strength.
TWENTY-ONE years ago, on 11 November, a group of diverse people came together to form a community alliance in defence of their right to a clean and healthy environment.
United in their cause against intolerable pollution levels and the industrial sources of that pollution in south Durban, this group of dedicated individuals formed the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) to campaign for an environment in which they could live, work and play without damage to their health and well-being.
Today, SDCEA, a coalition of 19 community organisations, has grown to become one of the strongest grassroots campaigning groups in the country with an unwavering and persistent agenda to ensure environmental justice for all. Internationally recognised for its work, SDCEA can today celebrate many triumphs in South Durban and beyond.
Two of the founding members of SDCEA, Desmond D’Sa and Bobby Peek have also been awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Award in 2014 and 1998 respectively for their work in south Durban.
“As SDCEA marks 21 years in the fight for environmental and social justice, the organisation pays tribute to the many activists, from housewives to academics, who all contributed to its achievements over the past two decades,” said Desmond D’Sa, one of the longest serving members of SDCEA and co-ordinator of the organisation.
Today, in the face of the multiple challenges of industrial pollution, corporate greed and development agendas that continue to marginalise and discriminate against the most vulnerable of communities, SDCEA has broadened its scope to include other social causes and remains more committed than ever to its vision “to unite, capacitate, and add value to communities and the initiatives of participating organisations, for the advancement of environmental and social justice, and to ensure development and practices that are sustainable and just.”
The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance Celebrated 21 Years of Environmental Justice, on 16 November at the Austerville Community Hall, Wentworth.
