Winning ecofriendly school project to fill potholes

When Grade 8 Star College Pretoria pupil Jeyush Doorsamy had to choose an appropriate project to enter the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists, he had every reason to come up with a solution to the country’s potholes.

His project, Filling Potholes With Recyclable Material, so much impressed the panel of adjudicating Wits University professors, it was chosen as the best in being environmentally friendly and sustainable.

Little did Doorsamy know that winning in the science competition would lead to him being invited to attend the Wits-Edinburgh Sustainable African Futures (Wesaf).

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The Wesaf doctoral programme – in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation – connects cutting-edge interdisciplinary research training in sustainability, with a focus on innovation and workplace experience.

Using a unique research training model designed for early career faculty at African universities, the organisation has committed itself to build a strong cohort of research specialists in the continent, to address sustainability challenges.

At the Wesaf event, Doorsamy and his science mentor, Nicholas Bixa, had a rare opportunity to interact with Wits University’s top brass – vice-chancellor Prof Zeblon Vilakazi, his deputy Ruskana Osman and Edinburgh University deputy vice-chancellor Prof James Smith.

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Doorsamy said about his project: “I chose to close potholes because it affects me, my family and the community at large. With government and municipalities not doing much, I decided to use my innovative knowledge and come up with a solution.”

In the beginning, he said, “the idea was to solve a big issue like waste on land, so I wanted to build low-cost housing as well”.

He added: “As I was researching, I saw that potholes were a bigger problem because my mom and dad were always affected by them. I decided to go with the potholes because they are a huge problem.

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“There is a lot of waste being dumped – so with the two main ideas, I decided to make them one main idea – covering these potholes with waste.”