New executive officer at Delta environmental centre

The new executive officer at Delta Environmental Centre in Victory Park, Malusi Vatsha, is well prepared for his new adventure and promises to maintain the standard of the park.

The new boss identified five key aspects that he would focus on for the upcoming five years. “We want to have a strategic plan that will define our main areas of focus at the park,” he explained.

Community involvement, school programmes, training, youth environmental service projects and maintenance of the infrastructure are Vatsha’s main focus areas.

“Remember this is the facility of Johannesburg City Parks so we work closely with all these key partners to make sure that we are not a white elephant,” he continued.

Vatsha joined the Delta Environmental Centre in 2013 as the project manager for youth environmental project, a flagship of the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), which is in the North West.

Since its inception, this project focused on training unemployed young people. “We have received a very good reception from the Department of Environmental Affairs,” he said.

He continued that the programme helped unemployed young people with training and skills for employment.

“The approach we adopted was quite progressive as many of them were placed at a place of work,” he said.

He initially worked eight years as a teacher in Kwazulu-Natal teaching high school pupils geography and history.

Vatsha then moved to Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden as a principal environmental officer and was managing the environmental education centre. Within two years he was appointed as the assistant director responsible for environmental education.

Through this programme he would go out to schools working with subject advisers, teachers and pupils teaching them about environmental conservation.

“Botanical diversity institute is more focused on teaching people of all ages about the benefits of biodiversity,” Vatsha said.

After spending five years at Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden he moved to Indalo Yethu, an entity funded by the DEA.

“It was an intervention that was targeting municipalities in their waste collection departments. We were mainly focusing on general awareness about waste collection and opportunities within those departments,” he concluded.

He spent two years at Indalo Yethu and then moved to Delta Environmental Centre and has now taken over the reigns from Di Beeton who worked at the centre for 27 years.

Details: Delta Environmental Centre, 011 888 4831.

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