Kensington, Johannesburg, Gauteng

One of Johannesburg’s oldest suburbs, Kensington, may be known for its jacaranda trees and its hills and valleys but it has fallen into dire disrepair in recent years as the City of Johannesburg has failed to keep up with its cleaning and maintenance schedules. 

In April 2016 a local resident who had started clearing illegal advertising stickers on electric boxes and streetlights came up with a plan to collect donations for clean-ups and at the same time create employment for local people to do the cleaning and clearing. 

Residents and local businesses have benefitted and in a small way job creation has been achieved. With this idea of mutual wins, Kensington Clean Village was launched. 

What was the problem?

As the City of Johannesburg has failed to clean and maintain city streets across the city or to enforce bylaws against littering and dumping, it’s left many suburbs in Johannesburg in a state of neglect and deterioration.

The suburb of Kensington faced many of these challenges. Local residents watched with deepening frustration as their suburb became more rundown with people dumping rubbish bags on pavements or littering with no consequence for their actions. Verges and pavements were also becoming overgrown and unkempt as council cleaning became patchy and infrequent at best. 

How are the fixing it?

Local resident Sue Retallack decided to take action rather than to sit back and wait for the authorities to do their job. 

Retallack says she just got tired of seeing more advertising stickers on electric boxes and streetlights and road signs and started pulling them off. She told Daily Maverick in August 2021: “It was like one day I suddenly noticed the deterioration and the litter so I started cleaning up the streets and pavements of Kensington. If you wait for the City to do it you’ll wait till you die.”

Retallack initially worked with a local jobless man and started cleaning up her street – including to make street name mosaics to beautify her street. She realised quickly that there was an opportunity to give employment to people if more residents and businesses donated.

Together with other locals, Michael Blake and Kevin Mark, they set up a non-profit organisation. They called it Clean Village and put the call out for contributions. 

Now at nine years on Retallack has stepped back from the project, but the project has continued. The initiative is still able to give employment to local people and to work to improve the appearance of Kensington and to build more community action. 

Retallack quoted in Daily Maverick said: “We are taking ownership of our suburb by employing people to clean and take care of neglected verges and sidewalks to fill the service delivery gaps so to speak. As Kensingtonians we can claim this. We started a thing and we should feel proud and inspired to do more.”

She told FixLocal that one of the proudest moments for her has been to see someone who arrived to work at Clean Village, be supported through this community initiative to further her skills training and go on to become a qualified teacher. 

What makes it work?

• Taking action  - The motto of not sitting back and waiting for a perfect plan saw one person take a decision to just start cleaning up her section of the street as a first step to creating a solution. 

• Finding mutual benefit – Clean Village works on donations from business and residents. Businesses can see the benefit in being able to trade in a tidier and more welcoming environment. For residents it restores a sense of community pride. Knowing that the initiative they contribute to gives employment to local people is also a big plus to fighting joblessness in the suburb.

• Creating visibility and profile  - The clean-up teams work with clear signage and banners in the areas they are deployed to each day. This raises awareness of the campaign and allows people to see the community-funded initiative in action.

• Transparency and autonomy  - One of the first principles Retallack implemented when she was a director of the project was to retain autonomy for their clean-up teams’ cleaning schedules. This meant that donors had to understand that they were contributing to clean up throughout the suburb, not just on their streets. At the same time the project made their books and financials readily available to ensure transparency.

• Feedback and updates – Using the local community Whatsapp Page, Clean Village posts before and after photos of areas where the teams have worked and gives updates to the community on what they have achieved. 

• Supporting local job creation  - Understanding the need to address joblessness and to support the Clean Village crew to better their lives has been a critical part of making the project a success.

Acknowledgements:

Author: FixLocal reporter

Additional articles/ sources: 

Clean Village website  

In a big city like Johannesburg, it’s the small acts for the greater good that count

Photograph: Clean Village