The Hessequa Municipality, in collaboration with the Department of Social Development, Department of Arts and Culture, ACVV, and Riversdale Child Welfare, hosted a holiday program from 25 to 28 March 2024. The target group were young people between the ages of 12 and 16, as identified by the DSD, ACVV, and Child Welfare. The aim of the program was to keep children involved with fun recreational activities while also educating them on social and environmental issues. It was important that the children were made aware of the daily social ills and to see that there are more positive recreational activities that can be done to replace negative behaviour. The program was well attended on all four (4) days, and the children’s knowledge increased on a number of issues. The hope is that the information shared with them and the activities that took place will help them make more informed decisions in the future.
To celebrate the International Day of Action for Rivers and World Water Week, the GCBR MAB-YOUTH was invited to plan activities for the children that will raise awareness on the state of our rivers and the need for their protection, particularly for the benefit of our children.
The children were taken to a section of the Vette River to conduct mini-SASS, a simplified version of the SASS5 scoring system, which anyone can use to monitor the health of a river by recording and scoring the macroinvertebrates found in a sample of the river water.
Leila Moosajee delivered a presentation on the importance of removing invasive alien plants invading our river systems and the negative impact these plants have on biodiversity and water quality. Additionally, as part of the initiative, a river cleanup was undertaken, with the children actively gathering and disposing of waste littering the riverbanks of the Vette River.
Following these sessions, the children visited a water purification plant, where they learned about the process of purifying the water sourced from our rivers and dams to meet human consumption standards. This experience gave them a profound understanding of safeguarding our water resources for current and future generations.
A special thank you to the Hessequa Municipality, Department of Social Development, Department of Arts and Culture, ACVV, and Riversdale Child Welfare, as well as the Grootvaderbosch Conservancy for their assistance in making the day a success.
Nelisiwe Khusi conducted mini-SASS with the children, a simplified version of the SASS5 scoring system, which anyone can use to monitor the health of a river by recording and scoring the macroinvertebrates found in a sample of the river water.
Leila Moosajee delivered a presentation on the importance of removing invasive alien plants invading our river systems and the negative impact these plants have on biodiversity and water quality.
A river cleanup was undertaken, with the children actively gathering and disposing of waste littering the riverbanks of the Vette River.
We visited the water purification plant, where they learned about the process of purifying the water sourced from our rivers and dams to meet human consumption standards.