A young leader with the love and passion for her rural community held a dialogue to discuss the shortage of clean water, access to health care, bursaries and crime prevention in Enable village, Ga-Sekororo on April 17.
“We still drink water from the river, which is not clean enough. After several attempts of seeking help from political leaders in the community and her local municipality, I took the bold step of registering for the 2016 municipal elections as an independent candidate gunning support for the community first before personal interests,” explained Motsatsi Mmola, a resident from Enable village.
When asked why she does all this without expecting any financial or political gain she responded: “A person needs her people, the love and the respect I have for my community coupled with changes I want to see motivate me to keep on doing good. It is appalling to wrestle with the gripping reality that people still drink water from the river along with cattles, that matriculants cannot see beyond grade 12 because of a lack of resources as minimal as arguably, access to the internet and that people from the most impoverished of communities are faced with crimes and nothing tangible is being done by leaders of communities who have Party affiliations and loyalties vested in their various political structures as opposed to the key stakeholders who put them in office,” Mmola told the Herald.
She has overcome threats from political parties after registering as an independent candidate for the municipal elections to a point where they now revere and respect her for the honest and empathetic leadership she displays.
“We will have follow-up dialogue that will be near May 14-19 in our community which will be close to the budget for local municipalities where community members who want to see change will attend,” Mmola added.
The young leader attributes her success to the support from the community of Hoedspruit, in closing and with pride in her voice she concluded by saying, “Dream big but take baby steps.”
