Smiling into the camera, a bright-faced little girl of about four dressed in her Sunday best shouts ‘Trees!”, instead of the customary ‘Cheese!” Tiny, sandal-clad feet stomp the freshly stirred earth around a newly planted acacia tree.
Nearby, mom Nomsa Nhlapo scrutinises white stinkwood, olive and karee saplings, weighing up the merits of small versus large leaves or, perhaps, which tree would look best in her bare, postage stamp-sized garden. ‘That one, please,” she enthuses after some deliberation, pointing at a sturdy stinkwood. It’s an important decision requiring some time: ‘This one I am going to keep forever,” she tells me.
Dressed in a bright white T-shirt that would not look out of place in a soap powder advert were it not for the words ‘How can we help you?” emblazoned across the front, Lucky Charles Twala carefully hands her the sapling. He takes care to point out the planting and watering instructions tied to its slim stem and turns to help the next person in the queue.
Twala is an unemployed community-based educator who, for the past two weeks, has been going door-to-door in the Redville/Umzumbe village near Springs on the East Rand, teaching his neighbours the merits of greening their settlement.
As is the case for so many other low-income communities, life for the Redville villagers is not easy. To qualify for a house, the net household income must not exceed R800 a month — a requirement easily met because the majority of the residents are out of work. Money is scarce and is rapidly spent on essentials.
Recognising the desperate need for urban greening in newly established low-income settlements, as well as the sociological and ecological benefits of planting more indigenous trees, an NGO and a large corporation have joined hands to help the impoverished community create a better living environment.
On a hot, sunny October morning, First National Bank (FNB) and Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA) Trees for Homes visit Redville to hand out 930 trees to grateful homeowners. They are planting the first seed of what will hopefully germinate into a sustainable initiative with the long-term benefits of healthier lifestyles and living environments, as well as greater civic pride.
Jeunesse Park, CEO of FTFA and daughter of former Mr Universe Reg Park, packs a lot of muscle power in her efforts to see a greener, healthier South Africa. FTFA has overseen the distribution of two million trees in the past 14 years. With an 80% survival rate, that’s a lot of trees. The organisation also deals with water harvesting, organic food gardens, perma- culture and effective water management, vital areas in South Africa today and the world over.
Established in 1990, FTFA recognised the need for sustainable development long before the term became the new eco-buzzword as a result of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). Trees for Homes branched off the main organisation four years ago and, using emerging local nursery owners when possible, has overseen the distribution of 150 000 trees to new settlements like Redville/Umzumbe.
It is the easiest and most sustainable means of making a difference, says Park: ‘Anyone can plant a tree.”
The benefits are many and self-evident. By greening their neighbourhood, the Redville community’s property values will increase, more shade is provided, housing energy efficiency is increased, and noise and air pollution is reduced in the industrial area. The initiative is sustainable, it uses readily available cheap resources and delivers big in the lives of so many.
During the festive tree-planting ceremony, the first tree to put down roots in the village’s community park area is, appropriately, FNB’s logo, the acacia tree. The acacia is a great drought survivor and, according to FNB director of sales and services for the region, Terence Tracey, a symbol of Africa’s strength and resilience.
The banking group’s slogan, as announced on Twala’s T-shirt, is ‘How can we help you?” The FNB fund apportions 1%, or R70-million, of the group’s annual post-tax income to a range of social upliftment projects. Some R75 000 has gone into FTFA’s urban greening initiatives.
Each household goes home with a choice of a white stinkwood, a karee or an olive, trees chosen for their hardiness and economical water needs. Twala points out a young tree, twice the height of a person, standing proudly in the village’s recreational grounds. He helped planted it five months ago.
‘We want to hang a swing from one of its branches for children to play on,” he tells me. Although a long way off, it is a sign of things to come.
Leaning against a wall at the home of resident Freddy Zulu are two olive saplings. He was retrenched a few months ago and his green fingers help put food on his family’s table direct from his modest little veggie garden alongside his home. He contemplates the best position for his new trees.
‘Maybe if I plant one here and another one here, I can put a hammock between the two trees,” he laughs. ‘Two trees helping each other to help me!”
Similar to the way trees help so many people, it is necessary for organisations to help each other. Park believes one of the most important outcomes of the WSSD is recognition of the importance of partnerships, particularly between NGOs, business and the government – all in the pursuit of creating healthy and economically viable places to live and work. Taking the stand at the planting ceremony, she appeals to the national government to draw inspiration from the small Redville initiative and to put these kinds of projects on its national housing agenda.
Pule Malefane, a member of the Gauteng legislature, echoes her sentiments, saying it is through partnerships that this potential can be realised.
‘How can we be proud of the half a million houses we have given to the poor if there are no trees? Homes and neighbourhoods without greenery are depressing,” he says.
In addition to the obvious benefits of greening an urban environment, the project’s spin-offs include the skills and training the community members receive in learning to become community-based educators.
Trained at the nearby Western Platinum Refinery, 20 residents learnt how to educate their neighbours on the advantages of urban greening and care for trees. They each receive a certificate acknowledging their participation. Twala hopes the skills he has developed will aid him in his search for employment.
The seven-year-old Redville/Umzumbe village is reached via a dirt road that winds past a dusty soccer field and the Western Platinum Refinery. It’s a typical low-cost housing development of 833 square, corrugated iron and brick houses. Washing lines add flecks of colour to an otherwise brown landscape, chickens peck in the grassy patches interspersed in the pre-summer rain-soaked landscape. There are few trees and shade is sporadic.
‘Trees are symbols to children, the future generations,” says Malefane in his closing address to the residents of Redville. ‘You will go, but the trees will remain. They are symbols of life. Where there are no trees, there is no life.”
But against this barren backdrop visitors after today will notice leafy saplings dotted around the neighbourhood – not just small signs of life, but signs of a community living.