Wentworth community on a mission to restore public pool
The idea to restore the pool, which has not been open since the start of Covid-19, was to keep the youth off the streets.
HOPING to keep the youth off the streets, several Wentworth community leaders and members have banded together to have the public swimming pool in the area restored.
Zane Scullard, a community member, said after weeks of discussion with the eThekwini Municipality, they recently allocated funds for the restoration of the Austerville swimming pool on Retreat Street. Scullard said they had begun cleaning up outside the pool with the help of community members.
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He said the idea to restore the pool, which has not been open since the start of Covid-19, was to keep the youth off the streets.
“While we understood the reason at the time, it can no longer be used as an excuse. Everyone is aware that we are living in a community that is plagued by violence, killings, and gangsterism which is what many youth are turning to as they hang around on the streets because there are no sporting facilities. A child would rather be splashing around in the pool, more than anything else,” he said.
Scullard said while on holiday in Johannesburg, he found that the community in the area had done a clean-up of their local pool.
“It was really inspiring, so when I got back to Durban, I decided to take a drive past our pool and found that on a hot summer’s day it was closed. That same day I went on social media and saw a resident’s post about how there is nowhere for the children in the community to go swim.
“I decided to make a video about how shocked I was and that how we as a community should in fact try to restore the pool as our own initiative. The response was phenomenal. We had people from all walks of life reach out and want to do their bit, such as cleaning the outside and inside of the pool premises which started immediately,” he said.
Scullard said however, the pool was in a dire condition. “It is in an absolutely terrible state. The tiles are broken, there is a thick blanket of rust at the bottom, and there are rats and Egyptian geese having a good old swim, instead of our community. We were also informed that there is rust in the filter pipes. There is a lot of work ahead of us, but we are amped to get it done,” he said.
Scullard said community leaders met with the city over the past couple of weeks to discuss their plans.
“Initially, we did not want or expect the city to restore the pool at their costs, as we had many people who wanted to be part of the initiative.
“However, we have been informed that the city has allocated funds and that the tender process has started. Our aim is to have the pool open to our children in the next few weeks before summer is over. Further to this, every child off the streets is another life saved from social-ills or even death,” he said.
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