Satish Nair — Quigney Ratepayers Association
A tourist taking photographs at Heroes Park in KuGompo City prompted Satish Nair to question the state of one of the city's historic landmarks, leading him to start a community cleanup initiative in Quigney in 2022.
Nair said he was driving past the park shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic when he noticed a woman photographing the German Settlers Memorial and Multicultural Man alongside it, while the surrounding area was neglected.
“It is a very important place in East London where tourists come. I felt so disheartened seeing this lady taking pictures of the Multicultural Man when the whole place was a mess,” he said.
He said vagrants were sleeping in the park and there was little evidence of regular maintenance.
Initially, Nair tried to get law enforcement and the municipality's solid waste department to address the problems, but he became frustrated by the lack of consistency.
“They would come and try, but it just didn't happen. There was no consistency. So we decided, let's do it ourselves,” he said.
The group was formed as a community effort, with safety and cleanliness identified as its main priorities.
“We believe that once we have safety and cleanliness under control, automatically the economy will grow, and businesses and tourism could return to the area,” Nair said.
One of its first targets was removing beachfront car washes, which he said had been a nuisance for more than 15 years.
“We managed to clean up the car washes in seven days, something that couldn't be done in 15 years,” he said.
Rather than exclude the car washers, the initiative brought eight former car washers into its cleanup and security operations.
“They have all seen that Quigney needs to be back. We want Quigney back,” Nair said.
He admitted that the work sometimes left him questioning his decision to remain involved.
“There are times when I go to bed and ask myself, what am I doing here?” he said.
“But when I wake up in the morning, I always tell myself, 'East London is beautiful.' If I don't do it, who is going to do it?”