Cameroon journalist reports on South Africa

by Ngehndab Delphine, Cameroon In November, 2006, I was in South Africa on an environmental reporting course sponsored by the Reuters Foundation . I thought it necessary to send you some of the pictures I took in Kliptown, one of the oldest settlements in Soweto. We visited Kliptown wetland where we found barefoot children play next to a stream of raw sewage that slowly trickles down to the river. It is school hour and the children in their innocence are playing around the filthy area so happy yet very unaware of the health hazards the environment poses to them and their community as a whole. A repugnant stench from rotting waste fills the air. The area is littered with use papers and plastics that only go a long way to prevent the wetland from purifying the water that could be used by the inhabitants of the area. A few meters away, a group of pigs are grazing on the edge of the polluted wetland. Downstream, ritual baptisms often take place using the same dirty water of the heavily polluted Klip river. This is an unlikely site if a community based conservation project based in Kliptown Operation Mayibuye, which means ‘Take Back’ was one of the main pillars of the apartheid struggle and also the operation that led to the arrest of Nelson Mandela. Now not far from freedom square, which celebrates South Africa’s new, found freedom, a new operation Mayibuye’ is taking place-also to take back or restore. But this operation has a distinct environmental flavour. It is aimed at restoring Soweto’s wetlands, including historical Kliptowns wetlands and neighbouring shanty town to its original sate of 50 years ago where the Freedom Charter was signed. Members of the Mayibuye Wetland Project have an uphill task of restoring the area.