Struggle of living next to the mine

Community Alerts/Mathapelo Thobejane/Limpopo-Sekhukhune/26/03/18

Ditoebeleng is a village in Burgersfort Limpopo, the village is located less than 100 meters away from Twickenham mine (Hackney shaft). The area started to grow few years ago when platinum was discovered, and the shaft Hackney started to operate, now the area is fully packed with people from neighbouring villages and people from outside town and country. The village is now the most populated village in our area this is with the obvious reasons that people move to Ditoebeleng because is the closest place to Mine shaft and mine offices.

Regardless of unemployed that increases yearly it is always packed and people still have the hope of getting jobs in the mine. This affect our community because there’s too much crime, high % of teenage pregnancy and school drop outs. It’s also a challenge because in our area we don’t have enough water because we can only access water twice a week. This is very hard especially to poor people who don’t have big JoJo tanks to store the water. People don’t have work also so the challenge it’s been there even though they community was hoping or a better change when the mine came to our area but after 10 years we are still leaving under poverty. By Mathapelo Thobenjane