There are possibly two ways to deal with life in contemporary urban South Africa, which has been ravaged in many places by decay and neglect. You can retreat to your cocoon in the suburbs and ignore it, whining on social media. Or, like East Rand businessman Luke Botha, you can say, No. We are tired of going backwards. And you can put your sweat, or your money, or both, into cleaning up and beautifying the areas around you, especially those where you have to work. ALSO READ: Celebrating nature with river clearing That’s what Botha has done in and around…
There are possibly two ways to deal with life in contemporary urban South Africa, which has been ravaged in many places by decay and neglect.
You can retreat to your cocoon in the suburbs and ignore it, whining on social media. Or, like East Rand businessman Luke Botha, you can say, No. We are tired of going backwards.
And you can put your sweat, or your money, or both, into cleaning up and beautifying the areas around you, especially those where you have to work.
ALSO READ: Celebrating nature when cleaning up the river
Botha did this in and around the business park he bought. He repaired the street, repainted road markings and installed speed bumps. He then cleared a piece of vacant municipal land that had been used as a landfill and turned it into a soccer field for residents of a nearby informal settlement.
It’s the little things like this that can make a difference…that’s the “broken windows” theory applied to take New York out of decades of crime and filth.
Improve the environment, the theory goes, and you’ll encourage people to get better too. Crime and litter will decrease. Let’s hope Luke Botha’s experiment works