Pretoria - A new year and a fresh face – this is the state of the 30th Avenue Pierneef Bridge in the Moot, Pretoria, which now has a mural done by a local artist.
The bridge is the latest in an ongoing project of a group working together to bring a brand new face to this old suburb, known as The Moot Project.
The project came to life in July last year when Hennie Mostert and Johan Oberholster joined forces. Oberholster, after recovering from a debilitating bout of Covid-19, relinquished his management position at the University of Pretoria and thus had more time on his hands to become involved in community work.
As a result, he arranged to repaint the play apparatus and anchor poles and gates in the neighbourhood play park, as well as the area surrounding this park on Pierneef Street.
Mostert, having been involved with cleaning several areas in the Moot on his own over many years, saw this and approached Oberholster to ask whether they couldn’t work together; hence The Moot Project came into being.
“It is a community initiative whereby we aim to uplift the Moot area and to make it a destination of choice for homeowners. We aim to do this by cleaning, repairing and repainting the municipal infrastructure neglected by Tshwane over many years and by greening the area by planting waterwise indigenous plants where appropriate.”
“We subscribe to the Broken Window Theory used with great success in New York to turn that city around. The main premise of this theory is that one should start with maintaining the small things in your immediate vicinity and get that shipshape,” Oberholster said.
“As the area improves and starts to look well-kept and neat, incidents of crime start to decrease and residents begin to take pride in their community again and thus become more involved.
“To do this, we are prepared to work with literally everybody from the community, Tshwane, businesses, artists, The Big Clean-up and other community initiatives and so forth.”
According to him, the community has taken to the project with great enthusiasm and assist wherever they can.
“We are a positive group who look for solutions to problems by brainstorming and taking action. We don’t just complain about what is wrong, but we take action and do something about problems that we experience. We all know what is wrong and complaining has never solved anything.”
He added: “As an overarching goal, we would like to illustrate to the Moot community that there is hope – provided we dirty our hands and do things ourselves, irrespective of how unkempt infrastructure and dirty the area around us may seem.”
This year, the project plans to continue with its monthly community clean-up sessions where the community identifies problem areas and community members dig in to clean, restore and repaint it.
“Typically we would mow the grass and weeds, pick up all litter, repaint bus stops, robot poles and the bottom section of lamp poles, trim the trees in the area and clean and sweep the joint where the tarred road and cement kerb meet.
“We also aim to create a ‘golden mile’ in each suburb where a specific area or street is restored to ship-shape condition by the suburb representative and his or her own team.”
The group’s latest accomplishment, the painting of the train bridge in 24th Avenue between Pierneef Street and Nico Smith Street, started in November when 90 community members assisted with a clean-up session on a Saturday morning.
This is where the idea was born to beautify the bridges of the Moot on a grand scale to boost tourism in the area.
The design of the mural was by Elsie Weich, an artist who lives in the Moot.
“Elsie had the brilliant idea to pay tribute to the renowned SA painter, JH Pierneef (1886 to 1957), who resided at the corner of 30th Avenue and Pierneef Street around 100m from the now Pierneef bridge.”
In doing so, she incorporated the significance of a historical resident of the Moot in the beautification of the area. The artwork comprises clouds and acacia trees, and is inspired by the work of Pierneef.
The colour in the artwork is provided by a stylised South African flag incorporated into the design on the one side.
The final artwork was executed by Weich with the assistance of Jan Strydom.
Oberholster said the project team hoped that the artwork on this bridge would make people proud to be residents of the Moot and would inspire more of them to become involved in uplifting the area.
Pretoria News