“We grew up knowing graveyards to be well-respected places where one can connect with their loved ones, but today‘s youth simply doesn’t care.”
So said Oom Johnny Lekgetho from Ikageng. According to him, the community has lost respect for themselves after starting to fill the old Potch cemetery next to AME with heaps of litter.
Lekgetho says the municipality isn’t to blame for the issue but the community members. “The municipality previously installed a fence to control movement within the site. It didn’t even take three days for our people to remove the fence,” he lamented. “The state of the graveyard deeply saddens me.”
Lekgetho pleads with the community to help restore the graveyard to the once-respected place it was. “There is litter everywhere; even on people’s tombstones. What has our community come to? Let us love and respect ourselves first before we blame the municipality,” he said.
The Herald asked the municipality for comment but had received none by the time of print.
