Volunteers from a church group have repainted the Lansdowne train station’s subway to rid it of crime.
The group, which calls itself Save the Earth from A to
Z We Are One (ASEZ WAO), is made up of young people from the World Mission Society Church of God.
Its local and international volunteers help with humanitarian projects, and, most recently, they have been repainting crime-plagued train station subways.
On Sunday, the volunteers stripped old paint from Lansdowne subway and painted murals along with the words “our subway” on the wall.
One of the volunteers, Precious Malete, said they wanted to cover the graffiti to make the subway look cleaner and feel safer.
She hoped the inclusion of the words, “our subway”, would encourage residents to look after the subway.
“If we brighten up the subway, we hope that it will send a message for the community to look after it and lessen the crime.”
A bare tree has been painted in the subway as well, and as
more people in the community pledge to look after the
subway, their hand prints will
be added to the branches as
leaves.
Metrorail’s special projects overseer for the Western Cape, George Kiewiets, said he hoped the project would bring more positive energy to the train stations.
“I hope that the community will take ownership of this and their surroundings. Because of projects like this we are able to use funds that we have for more critical things.
“We hope that the community will come out in big numbers for future projects and make a pledge and be part of the goodness of society.”
Another volunteer, Songeziwe Mpepo, said she was proud to be helping the community.
“We want to make the community something to be proud of, something that we can boast about and be proud to say, ‘This is our community.’”