Community restoring Pretoria North to its former glory
Since the start of the project over 600 community members have joined in to support the cause and 10 people have been hired to make their dream a reality.
Residents in Pretoria North, fed up with the lack of service delivery to the community, took matters into their own hands.
Water leaks, open trenches, potholes and illegal dumping are a few of the issues that residents are plagued by.
House of Peace, a homeless shelter in the north and local NPO Pretoria-Noord Ons sal Self decided to take matters into their own hands and started cleaning public parks, streets and fix potholes as well as other damaged infrastructure.
The cleanup doubled as job opportunities for the beneficiaries of the NPO.
“We make sure they are not on drugs and supply them with a job instead, that will ensure that they have food on the table,” said Quentin Meyer, NPO founder.
The clean-up targeted areas where a large amount of illegal dumping had been taking place.
Meyer said that people do as they please and dump rubble anywhere with no thought for the implications.
He said their last major clean-up took place on July 16, on the corner of Stasie and Eeufees streets.
Community members put their money into the project to remove the rubble left when they demolished, with the permission of the owner, an abandoned house earlier this year.
“The amount of rubble that was left could not be cleaned by individuals, it needed to be removed by a TLB.
“As major cleaning was needed, the community paid for the truck that was hired to remove the rubble and the TLB was lent to us by one of our sponsors,” said Meyer.
He said they only removed half of the rubble and would return for the rest.
Meyer has stayed in the north for over 40 years and started the NPO to get the community back to its former glory.
“Our goal is to upgrade and improve Pretoria North from a “slum” town to a clean and proud town,” he said.
Since the start of the project over 600 community members have joined in to support the cause and 10 people have been hired to make their dream a reality.
During the tabling of this year’s municipal budget in May, MMC for Finance Peter Sutton said service delivery was not at the level the metro would like it to be.
He said the municipality budgeted R44.9-billion to improve service delivery with main focus being the core services such as maintaining streetlights, patching potholes, fixing water leaks and so on.
The amount comprises an operating budget of R42.1-billion and a capital infrastructure investment budget of R2.8-billion.
Meyer is also encouraging business owners to clean and maintain their surrounding areas to assist in creating a more positive environment.
“If for any reason they do not have the time or staff to accomplish this, they can take part in creating job opportunities for the beneficiaries of the House of Peace.”
For more information on how you can get involved contact Meyer on 082 304 8985.
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