A LOCAL social worker passionate about the tourist potential of the Umbilo “Ponds” Park, is on a mission to draw all relevant roleplayers and responsibly minded citizens together, through the Umbilo Social Development Organisation (USDO), and tackle an urban renewal project to reclaim the area.
Speaking to Berea Mail, Trevor White said residents had a responsibility to help build the society they desired and which children and the youth deserved. It is with this in mind, that his interest in reclaiming Umbilo, and especially the Umbilo Park, was born.
“The ‘crime and grime’ despair impacts hugely on the daily lives of many children, adolescents, adults, families, and business people living in or walking through the Rossburgh – Oliver Lea Drive and M7 triangle. Just talk to the schools, talk to the pedestrians coming from nearby as well as the many who come from other parts of our city, off the buses and trains and taxis, and who then walk the gauntlet past and through the generally well-maintained but non-secured recreational park and the adjoining naturally wonderful Umbilo Ponds/Pans,” he said.
He said in the International Heritage Reserves of South Africa, the same indigenous bush and pans have as their predators crocodiles and lions and maybe leopards. But in this similarly natural Umbilo beauty, the predators are criminals of two varieties – those desperately living in the dense natural bush and those well-dressed armed gangsters coming from outside,who have learned that the pickings are rich and the consequences are naught.
White, who works as a counsellor at Brettonwood High School twice a week, said he has to counsel learners who have been mugged walking through the park every week. He said he had approached the police and the local ward councillor for intervention, and had been told by Umbilo SAPS that the sector head had been tasked to take a more active role in the policing of the park, which he says is a positive start.
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“For me there is beauty at this park, a potential which is not realised, and a place which is not open to people because of the crime element. This was a drive-in cinema in the 80s and after it was closed, someone had the foresight to create this amazing and wonderful place. There is the potential to have hides, tables and chairs for picnics and a broader vision that I hope, through the USDO, we can co-opt movers and shakers onto a project to reclaim this space and for the tourist potential to be realised,” he said.
White said Brettonwood High School adjoining the Umbilo Pans, as well as Rossburgh and Phambili High Schools nearby, could also get involved through school enviro clubs.
“We need to look at whether ‘lifting’ the Umbilo Pans into an opportunity for eco tourism, both for our local families as well as international visitors, could also be an opportunity for training and employment. Outdoor restaurants and catering, which can be provided by the school catering club, will also attract more responsible users and tourists to the upgraded recreational and eco tourism infrastructure, which already includes Parks Maintenance. This could be an eco tourism project in partnership with the municipality. Umbilo is blessed to have these wonderful resources and I thank the Parks Department who do their best to maintain them,” he said.
If any organisations would like to get involved in this project to reclaim the Umbilo Ponds, they can contact Trevor on trevorgwhite@gmail.com.
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