City of Tshwane launches Green Outreach Programme

© Ella Sarkisyan – za.fotolia.com

The campaign is a two-year awareness and educational programme aimed towards city residents and forms part of the greater Tshwane Green Economy Strategic Framework.

The City of Tshwane's Green Economy Strategic Framework was approved by a Mayoral Committee in September 2013. The City Sustainability Unit realised the need for an awareness programme to communicate the framework to the community in a captivating way, so the Tshwane Green Outreach Programme was developed.

The programme's aim is to encourage residents to change their behaviours and lead sustainable lives. TUKI (short for 'toekoms', the Afrikaans word for future) was introduced as the official mascot for this awareness programme at the mayoral event and made a special surprise appearance at the youth and green economy event at the end of the week.

Green is gold

"Green is the new gold," said Dorah Nteo, strategic executive director at the City of Tshwane, when introducing TUKI. "The flower that TUKI holds has different colour petals, each representing an aspect of our outreach and educational programme. The dark green petal stands for service delivery by the government to help make Tshwane a green city.

"The red petal represents communities; the light green, homes; the dark blue, business; the light blue, schools and the yellow represents soul or individual actions that can be taken to help make the city of Tshwane sustainable. We aim to reach out to each petal to ensure that our city is well aware and equipped with the knowledge and information needed to make green decisions."

"This year's Sustainability Week proved to be a wonderful platform for debate and sharing of new concepts and innovation," conference organiser and director at alive2green, Gordon Brown, says. "The calibre of speakers and exhibitors attested the high level of political will, expertise, technologies, products, and funding available for the advancement of the green economy in South Africa."