Alien invasive plant used to empower communities
Water Hyacinth is being repurposed resulting in job creation.
A close up of water hyacinths blooming on Hartbeespoort Dam on 31 January 2023. Picture: Abigail Javier/Eyewitness News
Gugs Mhlungu spoke to resident CSI & Nature Conservationist, Tim Neary and founder of Social enterprise Thekga Movement, Tumi Mphahlele.
Listen to their conversation in the audio clip below.
Water Hyacinth is known to be a destructive and costly invasive plant.
It is found throughout many waters in the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Free State and Mpumalanga, but it's mostly problematic along the Vaal River.
This aggressive species severely impacts the environment and it's a significant economic burden when it comes to management.
"We don't know exactly where it stemmed from but what we do know is that it chokes the water, it removes a lot of oxygen from the water and consequently makes it very hard for fish and all to live. It messes with our ecosystem."
- Tim Neary, CSI & Nature Conservationist
"The cost of management of this is continuous. You are not going to get rid of this weed."
- Tim Neary, CSI & Nature Conservationist
One organisation has created an opportunity out of this bad situation.
Social enterprise Thekga Movement is repurposing Water Hyacinth into hand-woven crafts and eco-friendly products.
The initiative is empowering communities and creating jobs.
"We trained a community of 30 women around the wetland in Ekurhuleni, which is the Slovo community, we enrolled them, we trained them for about six months, we gave them the hard skills on basket weaving as well as soft skills on entrepreneurship. We wanted to empower them so that they could actually start their own businesses and become contract manufacturers for us."
- Tumi Mphahlele, Thekga Movement founder
From baskets, rugs, office accessories, pet furniture, and homeware accessories, click here to view all their products.
Scroll up to listen to the full interview.