Become a volunteer at Mitchell Park

VOLUNTEERS are needed to help maintain and monitor the zoo and playground area at Mitchell Park. eThekwini Municipality Parks Department’s Garth Kloppenborg made the appeal at a meeting at the historical park with local Councillor Martin Meyer who had received complaints about the state of the park.

Kloppenborg said there was a desperate need for more people to volunteer to get involved with projects to help improve the zoo.

“We have a functioning Trust and we encourage people to get involved.”

“We are looking for a ‘head’ volunteer, a mother hen as I like to say, to take the volunteer project under their wing and to organise projects to help improve the zoo. This person would liaise with staff on projects without interfering with operational issues.”

“We definitely need someone to run this and be the glue that holds the volunteer group together. Volunteers can do so much to help us in the zoo,” he said.

Kloppenborg said a volunteer programme could also be an opportunity for work or organisational team building, where groups could go in and work on projects in the zoo.

He said sponsors were also needed for projects, and that the Florida Road UIP was interested in incorporating Mitchell Park and Jameson Park into the precinct.

Resident Jean Tuck (70) was so disappointed with the state of the park and the zoo on a recent visit, that she contacted her ward councillor to lodge a complaint. Tuck says in all the years she has visited park, since she was a child, she had never seen it in such a mess.

“The zoo was dirty and smelly, with bird droppings everywhere, the cages were overgrown and the water for the birds to swim in was green and dirty. You can hardly see the animals and birds for the mess, The playground is just as bad and the equipment needs to be tarted up. For tourists, this is not on,” she said.

However, Councillor Meyer said the upkeep of the park relied on funding allocated to it in the municipal budget. “The Trust does all it can, but I have seen in the new budget that only R1 million has been allocated for this year, the same as the past five years. This is not nearly enough to run the park. The Trust does try to raise money but the responsibility ultimately lies on the municipality,” he said.

However, Kloppenborg said the park was not entirely overlooked. “We have recently done some work at the park, such as painting the fence and the area outside the zoo kiosk. We are also working on the top cage so we will be able to move animals around. We will also be starting school holiday programmes as our education centre will be launched soon, following approval by the Council. This will create a more formal route of educating children who visit the park,” he said, saying volunteers would also help bysupplementing the manpower available at the centre. He said the department was in the process of hiring an education officer.

He added that there was also a need for new trustees for the Mitchell Park Trust. He encouraged interested people to contact the Trust and submit their CVs.

If you are interested in taking on the role of heading up volunteers, or if you want to be a volunteer at Mitchell Park, contact joanne.marais@durban.gov.za.

To submit a CV to the Trust, contact Abdool Magid on 031 322 4096.