The leadership of the municipality spent their day revamping the Nomathamsanqa playpark in Addo (ward 6) today.
Led by the Mayor Cllr Solethu Lucas and Chairperson of the Community Services and Public Safety Portfolio Cllr Smith, members of the Council, officials of the municipality, teams from COGTA’s Community Works Programme (CWP), representatives of Sundays River Valley Collaborative(SRVC), colleagues from Legal Aid South Africa and children from the community built the yard using old tyres, painted, repaired machines, weeded, swept the park to make it more attractive for the children.
The municipality chose to focus on children on this year’s Mandela Day to heed Tata Mandela’s call to prioritize children in the South African democracy.
Speaking at the launch of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund in Pretoria in 1995, Tata emphasised the importance for the prioritisation of children.
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children,” he said.
“The vision of a new society that guides us should already be manifest in the steps we take to address the wrong done to our youth and to prepare for their future,” he continued.
“Our actions and policies, and the institutions we create, should be eloquent with care, respect and love,” he added.
During the opening of today’s activity, Mayor Lucas said SRVM as the greenest municipality in the province, actions are always centred around amplifying aspects of a green ecosystem.
“Some of those aspects in the ecosystem include beautification, effective use of open spaces and proper maintenance of recreational spaces which is what we are doing today,” he said.
The Director for Community Services and Public Safety Mrs Andiswa Mbongwe spoke on the municipality’s children focused plans, greening and beautification efforts.
She said one cannot conclude the story of uTata Nelson Mandela without touching on his love for children.
“Ours is to create spaces where kids can just be; this year we wanted to hear the voices of children, their laughter as they enjoy their revamped facilities and it was achieved,” she said.
The municipality is running its greening and cleaning programmes this year under the theme “30 Green Deeds for 30 years of democracy” and is set to host different programmes across the Valley under this theme.