Eco-champs and schools create river revival festival

IT has been a tumultuous nine months for the Aller River Project where the Eco-champs were mobilised to start a process of community interactions and engage with authorities on the issues affecting river health.

Paolo Candotti from the Ethekwini Conservancies Forum said they have had their ups and downs but were extremely pleased with the way in which the Clermont community and departments within eThekwini Municipality have responded to the processes they have introduced.

He said monitoring is now a regular feature of the work of the Eco-champs and this is reducing but not eliminating the amount of sewage in the river.

“We have still not made as much progress as we had hoped with the New Germany residential and the industrial sections and this is something we do plan to address in Phase 2,” said Candotti.

UKZN has been involved in assessing the Aller River project and Candotti said the report will be available during June as well as their own internal report on the impact of the project to date.

The funding has been secured through Cambridge University in the United Kingdom who raised the funds from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of their research on Climate Change.

“We are excited about this partnership and look forward to new initiatives in Phase 2.”

Saturday, 25 March was an exciting day for six schools in Clermont as they participated in the Aller River Revival Festival.

The festival was the culmination of weeks of preparation by the Eco-champ team and also involved an Art Fair with the learners from the schools producing art depicting the river and the environment.

The six schools were: uMqhele High School, Udumo Primary School, Christianenburg Primary School, Clernaville Primary School, Clermont HP and Etshelishle Primary School.

“We were very pleased to have had the Durban Natural Science Museum’s mobile GO-WILD unit on display at the festival. The children enjoyed the displays as many simply do not get the opportunity to visit the museum in the city centre,” said Candotti.

In addition to the educational activities, various groups performed plays on environmental issues relating to water and river health which were great fun and most enjoyable!

Do you want to receive news alerts via WhatsApp? Send us a WhatsApp message (not an sms) with your name and surname (ONLY) to 060 532 5409.

You can also join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.