Mandela’s garden
FOURWAYS – Your commute down Witkoppen Road will now be a lot more beautiful.
Fourways celebrated Mandela Day in true Madiba style this year when local organisations cleaned the suburb’s streets and beautified the garden opposite the Douglasdale Police Station.
Teams from Future City Fourways (FCF) spent Saturday morning, 16 July, out and about cleaning the streets of Fourways and Douglasdale, and volunteers from local businesses and the community joined in.
Read: Future City Fourways launches first clean-up programme
Susan Mottram, founder and communications director of FCF, said they did this project on Mandela Day because it was in line with what their former president worked for during his life.
“Nelson Mandela was all about being inclusive,” Mottram explained.
“He wanted to improve life across the board. What better way to honour him than to make a beautiful garden that everyone can enjoy.”
Another aim of the day was not only to clean up the intersection of Douglas Drive and Witkoppen Road, but also to renovate the verge garden situated there.
This was done with the support of Fourways Airconditioning, which has become a monthly sponsor of FCF. Both organisations have entered into a co-branding arrangement with the non-profit company receiving banners and uniforms from Fourways Airconditioning, which will soon be visible around the area.
Richard Perry, one of the directors of Fourways Airconditioning, explained that his company did not get involved simply to advertise their business, but also to inspire other companies to get involved with their communities. “A big thing for us [in joining with FCF to build this park] was to create corporate awareness,” he explained.
“We want other business people to drive past the park and think to themselves ‘what can we do for our community’?”
Read: Future City Fourways spreads Madiba magic
This garden had previously been planted twice but had not received enough support to sustain it. As such, Fourways Airconditioning will now pay the full salaries of two full-time cleaners to clean parts of Witkoppen Road and maintain the garden.
The two new employees, Thema Pmkiza and Nono Piane, were employed from December last year and work on maintaining, not only the garden but also cleaning stretches of Witkoppen Road and Douglas Drive as well.
Nono Piane explained that she was very happy and appreciates having a job.
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