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River clean-up along Zandfontein Spruit reveals urgent need for water literacy
With all the water scarcity in Johannesburg recently, there is a collective effort to conserve water bodies in Sandton. To this end, Gallo Manor resident and Miss Earth 2023 pageant second runner-up (called Miss Water), Duduzil Mbobo joined Bubele Africa and their partners for a clean-up operation along the Zandfontein Spruit in Innesfree Park.
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Bubele Africa is an NPO that provides work opportunities for persons who beg on roadsides. These people help to clean up along rivers and spruits. Mbobo shared how she first became involved with the non-profit. “I connected with Bubele Africa last year at a river clean-up in Blairgowrie, which sparked my interest to continue sharing their passion, and engaging communities this way – cleaning rivers, assisting communities and trying to beautify our environment.”
Also read: Clean up at Bryanston’s greenbelt
The organisation arranged for multi-stakeholders, including volunteers from Greenside High School, to join in their effort to clear debris from the spruit on September 14.
“We all need to understand that we drink from the same rivers,” said Bubele Africa’s co-founder Shurldrae Rosen. “With the ongoing cleaning that we’ve been doing since 2020, we’ve seen significant changes within the Zandfontein and Braamfontein spruits in areas where communities donate to the clean-up. Again, we’re completely dependent on donations.”
Rosen emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling the challenges of conserving water bodies.
“Hence, we have Miss Earth, Sealand, and the founder of CanRun here as well,” Rosen said. “The founder of CanRun and I came together and collected some of the cans [of perishable foods] that we’re going to hand out here today to people who came out to volunteer and help clean.”
Co-director of Bubele Wendy Malpage shared some background on the situation along the Zandfontein Spruit inside Innesfree Park.
“When we started, there were a whole lot of people [living] along the river. There are many people, from Lesotho, and upper Africa, that have no place to go to. If you go down farther, you’ll find thousands of people living along the river,” Malpage said.
“But what can we do? We can’t just drive people out. If we could only have the government buy-in to help us with skips and help us create a formal way of living and working where they stay… We need to educate people living along the rivers, and that’s the biggest thing: education.”
Malpage disclosed the strategy Bubele’s taking towards establishing consistency in river clean-ups.
“We employ people whom we take off the streets… This is not employment, this is to stabilise people until they can find their footing, and start little businesses for themselves so that we can start with the next people that we find along the way.”
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Related article: World Clean Up Day tackles the Braamfontein Spruit in Sandton
