Stop Air and Water Pollution in South Africa

Empowering South Durban community members, especially women and youth, to engage in environmental justice issues that impact their lives is SDCEA’s concern.

Through its advocacy and community education campaigns, SDCEA has been instrumental in bringing environmental issues to the attention of South Durban’s policy-makers and has enjoyed significant success—most notably, the closure date of the toxic Bul-Bul Drive Landfill site.  The closure date is due to the decision made to fight this toxic polluter by community members who formed the Bul-Bul Drive Dumpsite Action Committee in 2008. 

 More recently, SDCEA was also able to mobilize people to take action to stop the proposed Transnet Pipeline Project, which would build a massive multi-product pipeline through many of South Durban’s poor and marginalized communities. SDCEA knew that building the pipeline would undoubtedly damage the culture, livelihoods, health and safety of the people living alongside of it. They called for a public hearing to be conducted by the Department of Environmental affairs to hear directly from the residents; they demanded an independent social needs study to be undertaken in conjunction with local educational institutions to determine how the pipeline will impact their immediate and long-term future.

 To help further SDCEA’s mission of strengthening local action for environmental rights, they have developed solid relationships with local academic institutions where they provide educational workshops on air quality monitoring, pollution and climate change, and renewable energy systems. These types of workshops and seminars equip people with the knowledge to understand the effects of climate change and the impact it may have on the lower lying coastal areas and towns of South Durban, as well as all of Africa.

 Because of SDCEA’s work, the public now understands that the environment is the foundation upon which all other development rests. 

Your donations will ensure that SDCEA continues to invest in South Durban’s future by enabling communities to understand the essential relationship between their basic needs and a healthy environment, and how to support equitable and sustainable development.

Your generous donations help SDCEA continue to provide important information and seminars for the people of South Durban. SDCEA reaches thousands of people, particularly women and youth, through their action days, policy seminars, and community meetings.

Confronting the environmental impacts of industrialization and post-apartheid negligence in minority communities through policy action, lobbying for environmental accountability, and community organizing is central to what SDCEA does. Efforts to effectively integrate justice and sustainability in development for the environmental and social enhancement of South Durban necessitates community members understanding what can be done about the pollution and hazards in their areas. Seminars and information sessions, in addition to community meetings, have helped SDCEA present complex and technical issues to their government and make recommendations for policies based on people’s needs, not industries’.

Women tend to bear the greatest burden of both poverty and a harmful environment, both practically and economically, in caring for children and the elderly who are the most vulnerable to illnesses resulting from pollution. SDCEA focuses on supporting women as organizers, empowering them to become leaders in their communities on health and environmental rights issues.

By donating to this campaign, you can help continue programs to educate and bring together the women of South Durban who are most affected, strengthening their voices in demanding changes to environmental policy and the political inequality in their communities that has allowed oil and coal industries to pollute their air and water.