IT has been exciting and encouraging to witness the powerful way the Hillcrest community has banded together to fight the EnvioServ toxic smell recently.
From Facebook groups and community meetings, to prayer meetings and an upcoming community march, it’s awesome to see what can be achieved when people come together with a common vision and a great deal of passion.
This is a strength that could be harnessed for so much good in the upper highway area and beyond, for all sorts of causes.
However, in my opinion the real victims in the EnviroServ disaster have so far not had a voice in the campaign.
It has primarily been the residents of the upmarket Plantations housing estate who are front-lining the advocacy movement, throwing their resources behind the fight to get the dump site closed down, raising their voices loud and clear in complaint about the toxic smell and its implications on their quality of life and their health, and threatening to sell their houses and move into other upmarket housing estates far away from the smell.
The publicity about the issue has, to date, focused on Hillcrest residents, stats from the Hillcrest Private Hospital and Hillcrest private GPs and paediatricians, and questions around how the local private schools are responding to the potential crisis.
I want to hear from the voiceless victims of this crisis.
We need to be talking to the staff at the dump site – how is their health after working on the site for all these years?
If we think the smell in Hillcrest is bad, surely we can only but imagine how horrendous it must be for those working right there at the dump day in and day out.
We need to consider the terrible position they find themselves in – very likely filled with fear at the prospect of speaking out about their concerns should they lose their job because of it.
We need to hear from the community members who live within a stone’s throw from the dump site – Shongweni and KwaNdengzeni, for example.
They have been living in the cloud of the smell for years, if not decades. What are the stats coming out of the local government clinics telling us about potential health implications of continuously breathing in those toxins?
What is the long-term psychological and self-esteem impact of living in what smells like a rubbish dump and knowing that no-one cares and no-one did anything until the smell hit the upper class Hillcrest residents?
If the potential health implications are true and these communities have been breathing in these toxins for all these years, why has no-one done anything about it until now?
We have the Hillcrest community to thank for bringing the world’s attention to this concerning issue. And I hope we will all learn something about the power of passion and advocacy and about what we can achieve when we work together.
But we must go deeper in giving voice to the voiceless victims in this unfortunate situation.
We need to see community meetings happening in the communities that are most impacted; Facebook pages formed in isiZulu language; school principals from local community schools being engaged on the issue; and meetings in the suburbs planned at times when taxis operate to ensure community members have the option to attend. In working together to put an end to this, we must ensure that we include everyone and especially those most impacted living and working closest to the site.
The voiceless must have a voice.
Olivia Myeza
CEO – Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust
