Investing in the Environment: Individual Award
Finalist: Kim Kieser
Joy Webber
When clothing manufacturer Kim Kieser saw a newspaper report about a murdered woman’s body dumped on a garbage heap a couple of years ago, she was galvanised into action.
“The article seemed to be the answer I sought to an unexplained dream I had had a week earlier,” she says.
The gory incident was the catalyst that led to the formation of the Save Our Universal Land (Soul) Foundation, an organisation that today provides jobs for dozens of unemployed people and removes tons of rubbish from the garbage-choked Jukskei river that runs through Johannesburg’s northern suburbs.
“I believe many of the social problems in areas like Alexandra are caused by the filthy conditions in which the people find themselves,” Kieser says.
She shut her clothing factory and began planning how to tackle the problem.
“For some time I was forced to live on financial help from my parents while I tried to get the Soul Foundation up and running. Fortunately, they believed in what I was doing,” Kieser recalls.
“I kept knocking on doors looking for financial help most of the time without success. There were many months when we had no idea how we would pay our phone bill.”
Her stubbornness finally paid off earlier this year, when the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, the Gauteng Provincial Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Land Care bought into the programme and made a R3,8-million donation.
“That was the leg-up we needed,” says Kieser. “We were able to begin the Friends of the River project, which saw workers start cleaning up the Jukskei river. On average, 1 000 bags of refuse are removed from the river every day by over 50 formerly unemployed workers who are paid R50 a day.”
Residents in affluent areas along the river such as Dainfern saw the results of Kieser and her team’s efforts and wanted to be part of it. They joined the Soul Foundation, in turn attracting other organisations that have made significant contributions.
Kieser believes simply clearing the trash from the river will not be enough. People in disadvantaged communities like Alexandra need to be given life skills if the project is to succeed in the long-term.
“We are working with the Phakamisa Business Trust to help set up entrepreneurship programmes,” says Kieser. “We plan to establish a project where recycled rubbish will be turned into art and sold. We hope to eventually have a self-sustaining arts and crafts centre that’ll be a tourist attraction.”
In the meantime, the Soul Foundation has turned its attention on businesses showing little regard for the health of the river and the people who live alongside it.
“We discovered some companies were illegally dumping effluent and waste directly into the river. After formally approaching them, they stopped. The same applied to a block of flats with a sewage pipe that emptied straight into the river.”
The next step, if the foundation can find the funding, will be to broaden educational focus of the programme.
“If we’re successful, we’ll be able to provide training for almost 500 people in literacy, life skills, project management, team leadership and business skills,” says Kieser. Southside Media