Residents of Parkwood came together on Monday to clean up a local canal that has been overflowing with rubbish.
This is all thanks to the founder of Jabulani Feeding and Learning Centre, Yasmine Abrahams, who roped in people from the community to clean up the gemors.
The clean-up effort is in response to the robbery of a group of City of Cape Town employees a week ago, who were trying to clean the canal. Yasmine paid eight locals R100 each to clean the canal, where flies have been breeding at an alarming rate.
Yasmine says: “Jabulani is at the canal and every day we make food for seniors and children, but the flies are in Jabulani and the problem was the canal.
“Our community children then jumped in and I had to pay them out of my pocket.”
Yasmine says that the City is equally to blame for dispatching employees without any visible police patrols in the area.
Yasmine says: “Hulle het die mense uitgestuur sonder protection, ek dink dit is waar hulle verkeerd gegaan het. Nou is die mense bang om weer te kom.”
She also asked why men in the community cannot be employed by the City to clean up vullis to avoid incidents like these.
Mayco member for Water and Sanitation, Zahid Badroodien confirmed the armed robbery incident and indicated that the City first needs to ensure that its workers are safe.
Zahid says: “As a result, the department removed the team from the location until their safety could be assured. This incident was communicated to the Ward Councillor and a commitment was made that CSRM [Catchment, Stormwater and River Management] will return to the site at a later date.”