Fourways residents showed that they are not afraid of a little hard work on 20 January, when many volunteered to take part in the first A Re Sebetseng (let’s work) initiatives of 2018.
The citywide initiative, which takes place one Saturday a month and was rolled out by City of Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba during 2017, encourages Johannesburg residents to come together to clean up their own neighbourhoods.
In Fourways this past weekend, two separate A Re Sebetseng events took place: One in Chartwell and a second in Fourways Gardens.
The event in Chartwell was organised by the Chartwell Country Estates and Conservancy and focused on the corner of Seven Oaks Avenue and First Road.
“During our cleanup, we will clean up this corner, all the way towards the [Klein Jukskei] river and entrance to the Msawawa informal settlement,” explained Ben Jowitt, chairman of the board. “A lot of the rubbish around here is washed from upstream, and some of it is also dumped illegally.
“To me, A Re Sebetseng is not just a once-off effort, but rather a regular exercise which residents should want to participate in – not just here in Chartwell Country Estates, but across Johannesburg.”
Community members got to work cleaning up rubbish with some surprising finds, including two separate broken Sony televisions and an old lawn chair, along with dozens of volunteers and Sbusiso Mthembu, councillor of Ward 96.
“I want to lead from the front. It’s easy to say we want a clean city, but often we don’t want to do the work [to achieve it],” Mthembu said of the initiative.
“Days like today are also an opportunity to interact with the community and a chance for them to bring issues to me that have nothing to do with Pikitup.”
One resident, Ian Lourens, who was in attendance said that what he found most surprising during his volunteering was the amount of building rubble dumped in the area illegally, instead of just rubbish and litter.
“It’s surprising and disappointing,” Lourense explained.
Mayor Mashaba was expected to make an appearance at the Chartwell cleanup but had to cancel last minute due to time constraints. Jowitt said that despite the change of plan, he was still very much grateful to Mashaba for leading from the front in the A Re Sebetseng initiative.
The other A Re Sebetseng event happened in Fourways Gardens, with those volunteers cleaning up Uranium Road between Cedar Road and William Nicol Drive.
“We had over 47 people attend our cleanup,” said councillor David Foley, who was also in attendance.
This group of volunteers split into two smaller groups, with one cleaning up towards Cedar Road while the second moved in the opposite direction towards William Nicol Drive. According to Foley, at least 200 refuse bags were filled with rubbish and then collected by Pikitup.
“Rubbish, illegal signage and the verges were also cut during the operation, which was a resounding success, and we were finished by midday,” Foley concluded.
