The 13th Avenue community of Alex joins hands to beautify their street
Community members in 13th Avenue Alexandra take to themselves to clean and beatify their street as they are tired of living in an unhygienic place.
Lawrence Ruele, founder of the Alexandra Youth Swim Academy, together with Kasi FM mobilised the residents of 13th Avenue to take matters into their own hands and clean up and beautify their street.
The residents were tired of living in an unhygienic place waiting for the municipality to clean up for them.
“For a while, we have been trying to fix Alex and I met with Ntate Linda Twala who helped with the resources to mobilise this initiative. The purpose of doing what we are doing in 13th Avenue was just so we can invite our friends to clean so when people come to Alex, they come to a clean place which reflects that we love ourselves and the space we live in,” said Ruele.
“We took it upon ourselves to clean our street which we clean every day. Mothers, grandmothers and girls wake up early to clean, and we as men wake up with them to mix cement and carry slabs. I also happened to come across a friend of mine who donated more than 1 400 bags of cement, slabs and concrete. He did so because he said he heard that we wanted to fix Alex and make it a better place that is spruce.”
According to Ruele, the community realised that if a person wanted to make a difference it started with where you lived, in your yard. Therefore, before pointing fingers at other people, one must ask themselves what they were doing as a citizen to help. He said they were still going to make their street more beautiful by planting trees and plants and installing lighting, so they needed as much help as possible.
Ruele said this was a hand-in-hand partnership with Twala, Phuthaditjaba, and the community of 13th Avenue who were 100% behind him.
“We now live in a very clean place that we maintain every morning… you will hear brooms and hose pipes, this goes to show that if you give people the resources, they will utilise them to the best of their abilities.
“Hopefully, this will expose all the other projects that the people of Alexandra are doing. The example that we set here in 13th hopefully inspires the other avenues, so people can see that love and care for Alexandra and its people.”
