Stellenbosch Wine Routes awards first clean-up action
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by Stellenbosch Wine Routes
Stellenbosch has for a long time been green, and is now also committed to becoming clean and litter-free. With the help of a sponsorship from Nedbank Winelands Business Banking, the Stellenbosch American Express® Wine Routes has started a programme encouraging the local community to clean-up the damage done by inconsiderate littering public.
"Because first impressions count, no tourism region can afford the unsightly image of litter scarring its landscape. Especially if that region is a wine region like Stellenbosch that relies heavily on its natural beauty," says Annareth Jacobs, CEO of the Stellenbosch American Express® Wine Routes.
"Litter, unfortunately, seems to be part of the South African landscape and fighting littering is often an overlooked part of a tourism strategy," she says.
With the assistance of Nedbank, the five sub-routes of the Stellenbosch Wine Routes are monitored on a monthly basis to see which route has best managed to fight the litter scourge. The winning sub-route receives a cheque to the amount of R2,500, which is to be donated to a wineland charity chosen by the sub-route representatives.
Pebbles Project, an educational trust and charity established in 2004, works closely with several wine farm owners, who support their work and assist them with the upliftment of their farm worker communities and the education of the workers' children. Pebbles also established after school clubs on five wine farms, which includes Bellevue, Eikendal, Delheim, Remhoogte and Villiera.
Using the Stellenbosch Wine Routes Clean-up Campaign as inspiration, Pebbles decided to make "The Environment" the theme of activities that took place at the Pebbles Project After School Clubs (ASC) during the month of April. Over a hundred school age children were provided with black bags and, along with the ASC staff, walked through the vineyards to pick up the litter that was scattered around their farms.
Putting nothing to waste the children proceeded to participate in art classes after the "Big Clean-up" where, using the litter they had collected, they made collage art. Each ASC was also given a talk on the environment, sponsored by Delheim, where they were informed about recycling and some ASC's were provided with different bins in which they could place their glass, paper and plastic rubbish.
For their efforts, Pebbles received a donation of R12,000, which will be used by the staff, children and teenagers that make up the ASC's on the five participating farms. Pebbles believes it is important to educate and create awareness amongst children around looking after the environment, and has thus decided to make the "Big Clean-up" a monthly activity. They are establishing two more ASC's in the Bottelary Hills sub-route and thus will ultimately have about 130 school age children collecting rubbish on a monthly basis.
A partnership has also been formed between Stellenbosch Wine Routes and the Stellenbosch Municipality, whereby farms are taking responsibility for the areas surrounding their farms. Staff and children working and living on the farms will keep their areas clean on a weekly basis. Stellenbosch Municipality will supply black bags, and collect the filled bags along with regular garbage at no extra charge to the farms.
For more information on the campaign, contact Stellenbosch Wine Routes on (021) 886-4310. Alternatively, to support the Pebbles Project, contact Sophia Warner on 072 472 2797, or visit www.pebblesproject.co.za.
