As more movement is permitted under lockdown Level 3, more environmental cleanups are taking place. Help Up is an organisation that trains and pays unemployed individuals to clean up the environment. They hosted its first lockdown clean up earlier this week.
“Wow it is so good to be back! Greetings fellow Earthlings! Jeez Louise, my ‘boude’ are aching from yesterday’s cleanup but earning that burn was so worthwhile! Firstly a huge thank you to you, our followers and supporters for keeping our flame burning during lockdown so that we could continue to support those faithful environmental Help Up warriors who could no longer attend cleanups due to COVID-19 lockdown,” the organisation’s Facebook post reads.
Those who are trained by the organisation are called ‘Help Up avatars’, and eight more joined the team to help with the most recent clean up, which took place on Sunday, July 5.
“We are delighted to introduce you to our eight new Help Up Avatars from New Hope SA Micro Site in Mowbray which is hosted by St Peter’s Church. Our new team arrived ready for action and worked with great gusto and enthusiasm!
“We have started our new cleanup vibes at the river mouth in Paarden Eiland where the Black River meets the Atlantic Ocean at Lagoon Beach. It’s a challenging space because we have limited time to clean there due to the tides rising but we managed 65 bags in total which is great going indeed. On top of that, the very cherry on the ice cream sundae is that our “Team Intrepid” at Langa, who run the Help Up Franchises Are Free project collected 90 bags of muck from the Jakkalsvlei Canal in a few short hours too,” the Facebook post continues.
Picture: Help Up/Facebook