Bulawayo Ward 28 Community Action Team spreads the word of communal self-help

Written by Ntando Sibanda, ZDDT News Correspondent Wednesday, 14 December 2011 15:40

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Ward 28 CAT members have gone out in full throttle to lead by example in educating the rest of the residents about the importance of keeping their community clean. A living testimony to this is the clean up campaign the CAT organised and conducted on the 2nd of December around the Egodini/ Esigaweni area in Cowdray Park.

The Ward CAT chairperson, Mr Vusa Charles, said the clean up campaign was a pilot project carried out in order to cultivate the culture of community responsibility among residents, whereby they take complete responsibility and ownership of their environment. They work in conjunction with City Council workers and management and, in doing so; promote the One Community, One City concept.

“Our main objective was to create consciousness among the people on the issue of environmental cleanliness, community ownership and to engage them on the issue of not dumping garbage on undesignated points. Since this was a pilot project, we hope to conduct these campaigns every month next year,” he said.

The clean-up campaign was conducted under the Trust’s SEBENZELA/Work for ... Programme which, through training and on-site interventions, aims to assist local communities in raising their living standards. The programme receives funding from a development partner which is closely linked to The Trust.

It was attended by 60 people who were led by community leaders. These include Ward Councillor, Mr Collet Ndlovu, and other Local Authority officials from various Council Departments.