Before the recent strike at Pikitup ended, many of Johannesburg’s suburbs were badly affected as bins and rubbish piled up, and Lombardy East and Rembrandt Park were no exceptions.
However, community members of these suburbs decided to take matters into their own hands and solve the problem.
The Lombardy East and Rembrandt Community Police Forum (CPF) operate community WhatsApp groups as platforms for residents to communicate concerns and share information related to the security within their suburbs. The forum also functions as a channel to ensure that matters raised by the community are heard by the relevant authorities.
“After four weeks of not having refuse collected, our neighbourhood started complaining extensively about the problem,” said Iris Girling of the CPF.
“Our community groups were being inundated with refuse queries. Further, it was now becoming a problem in that unscrupulous people were asking to collect refuse for a fee, but some were dumping illegally in our own neighbourhood.”
One of the Community Police Forum’s initiatives implemented in Lombardy East which has had a dramatic impact on crime, is Blockwatch. The Blockwatch involves community volunteers who patrol the suburbs and channel security information between residents, police and local security companies in the area.
Daniel Venter heads up the CPF Blockwatch and shared how the strike affected community safety. He said, “Not having refuse removed affected the security of the entire neighbourhood. It increased the number of unknown vehicles roaming the neighbourhood and vagrants wandering the streets as they constantly searched the bins.”
The CPF decided something needed to be done.
“To solve our community problem, it was essential to ensure the safety of the refuse trucks and their drivers,” said Venter, who co-ordinated with neighbourhood proactive security company ZSS Security to assist Blockwatch by providing armed tactical protection for the trucks.
Shakeera Lagardien of ZSS said this is the kind of community collaboration they pride themselves in. “We provided four marked vehicles and one unmarked vehicle, as well as an armed presence to escort two specially-arranged Pikitup trucks.”
By the time all the logistics were sorted, the neighbourhood had not had refuse collected for five weeks.
Girling said they kept all plans completely confidential because of the violence that had been associated with the collections. “We assured Pikitup’s arrangements were kept confidential until the night before.”
Kenneth Collett of the forum explained, “It’s the communication channel we have with residents via our CPF’s WhatsApp groups that allow initiatives of this kind to be executed quickly and efficiently, and for this reason we urge all residents in the area to join our Community Police Forum.”
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