From stillborn foetuses to mutilated animals, witchcraft ceremonies and peaceful confrontations with the dumping mafia — these are some of the things Alexandra's water warriors have encountered in their bid to end dumping in the Jukskei River where it flows through the Johannesburg township.
This week saw the group of about 50 activists, volunteers and youth workers marking a full year since their collective efforts prompted illegal dumpers to take their loads elsewhere. Before this, about 10 dump trucks an hour were illegally offloading rubble into the river.
The community-led initiative is a success story of environmental stewardship and active citizenry, with the Gateway Heart Park being the end vision.
“It’s a place that will include an orchard, a garden, a recycling space, steps to a yoga and meditation space on the river bank, jogging trails, a stage for events, an outdoor gym, a market place and a storm drain passage that can be used for skateboarding, with an overhead cable bridge joining the two sides,” said Lethukuthula “Rasta” Ncube, the group’s visionary.
Ncube is a Rastafarian fashion designer with a factory nearby, who has been involved with the cleanup since the beginning.
The project was originally started by activist Janky Matlala, who in September 2021 convinced a group of about 95 volunteers to join him in daily cleanups of illegal dumping and human excrement in the Jukskei — in the area where Lenni Drive and Marlboro Road meet at the Gautrain station.
Our passion was to clean up the area. And there were more challenges with factories on the Lombardy side dumping chemicals into the river, and a broken sewer system
— Janky Matlala
“Our passion was to clean up the area. And there were more challenges with factories on the Lombardy side dumping chemicals into the river, and a broken sewer system,” Matlala said, explaining why he referred to the river as a chameleon.
“The colour changes all the time — sometimes the water was red, then blue, then yellow or pink because of all the chemicals,” he said.
“It felt like we were going backwards. People started leaving the group because we had no funding and they needed to feed their families. And every day the river started smelling worse. But we didn’t lose hope.”
The group of about 20 members then joined with A Re Kganyeng Leseding Development Initiative — a volunteer youth organisation committed to cleaning Alexandra.
Volunteer Amigo Base said they got involved after seeing children going into the water to retrieve errant soccer balls or items dumped by the trucks coming out with discoloured skin and getting violently sick.
“We are still waiting on the clinics for those reports,” Matlala said.
Base added: “The cleaning was endless and every day things were just as bad as the day before.”
Nonprofit organisation Khulisa Social Solutions, with social workers based in Alexandra, then partnered with the group, helping them to co-ordinate their efforts and strategise. This led to dialogue circles where they were able to share the trauma they experienced during cleanup operations.
The volunteers could finally speak about the horrors they would encounter in the river — from stillborn foetuses to mutilated animals, dead rats and evidence of voodoo and witchcraft ceremonies taking place on the riverbanks.
They reached out to the City of Joburg, the MMC, the mayor and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) for help.
“Those mafias would just chase the JMPD. We know them. But we are like mafias ourselves and we are not scared,” Matlala said.
Having realised the challenges were too big for the group, now known as the Khulisa Jukskei River Social Entrepreneurs, Matlala approached local community leaders.
“We started talking and working with everyone. They all agreed that the river was dirty and that we could not continue to allow the dumping. Those leaders knew which trucks were coming in and who owns them, and they knew who was taking money and they were able to stop it,” Matlala said.
“We all sat down together and agreed that we needed to sort out the problem. We all saw how it was affecting our health, our houses and our children and so there was no fighting. We entered negotiations and put night patrollers out to stop people coming in the dark.
“Those mafias would arrive; we spoke to them and even they agreed not to dump. We were ready and prepared to use force, but it was not necessary.”
Former illegal dumper Trevor Mabaso said his truck was not roadworthy and because he did not have a licence he could not use any of the legal dump sites, so he resorted to offloading four truckloads of rubble into the Jukskei every day.
“I was dumping rubble near where Rasta stays. I would pay R40 a load and I was doing that all day every day,” Mabaso said.
But he was made to realise the effect of illegal dumping, particularly on children.
“I was doing badass sh*t and saw a lot of kids getting sick. I realised what I was doing was so bad that I became a volunteer. So I went from hardcore dumping to cleaning the river,” Mabaso said.
The group grew when IBM’s socioeconomic development leader, Chana de Vries, and a Sandton law firm also came on board.
Khulisa founder and CEO Lesley Ann van Selm said the project’s success was now at a point where they were ready to put a perimeter fence up to protect the cleaned area and plans going forward had been set.
The next step is to deal with the human waste.
“We’re planning a way forward. We are going to link up with researchers and funders and again the community will fix this themselves — basically developing an incentive scheme for people picking up poo,” said Van Selm.
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