“You teach women you teach the nation”

Community Alerts/Francia Nkosi/Limpopo-Lephalale/20/03/18

Community workshop on Environment on 17 March 2018. Legal Resources Centre(LRC) came to Lephalale at a rural area called Shongoane 1 for a workshop about communities’ rights to a healthy environment and land conducive to leave on. The purpose of the workshop was to address injustices faced by mining affected communities, especially women.

During the facilitation led by Tshepo Fokane of LRC, shocking stories concerning exhumation of bodies without consulting families and drinking of contaminated water in Steenbopan were raised with the hope that the matters can be solved.

It was also highlighted that communities have to record any evidence of an injustice they observe within their mining area, usually covering 50 KM radius. “The purpose of this workshop was to reach rural women and youth of Shongoane to advocate them about their rights to access clean water and also to know what to do when farm owners evict them from respective farms.

With the number of women that have attended I can proudly say “you teach women you teach the nation”. The workshop also touched base on rehabilitation of land after a mining project has come to its end and promotion of access to information, including spatial planning land use management act (SPLUMA), which governs informal and traditional land use development processes.

By Francina Nkosi