Download PDFMy name is Eva Mokoena, I am 38 years and I was born on 24 June 1984. I am single mother of 3 children, 2 girls and 1 boy. I started working as a reclaimer at an early age of 11. I liked to follow my mom to the landfill and help her to work. At the age of 17, I became the head committee of the landfill and after my matric, I left the landfill for a year and went to look for greener pastures but I did not find any, so I came back in 2004 and continued working.
In 2009, I left the landfill and worked as an Early Childhood Development (ECD) teacher for 3 years. I resigned and went back to the landfill. In 2015, I met South African Waste Pickers Association (SAWPA) and was elected to be the landfill coordinator. After a year, I was introduced to a Waste Picker Integration in South Africa through WIEGO to organise waste pickers in Joburg, Pretoria and Sasolburg. The late Simon Mbatha persuaded me to join the WISA project, that is where I learnt how to organise and negotiate. On 15 August 2017, I was chosen as the chairperson of the organisation while it was still called the Interim Joburg Reclaimer Committee. I had already started negotiating with the City of Joburg (CoJ). On 2 September 2018, we launched the name African Reclaimers Organisation (ARO) at the Jozi Book Fair. Since then, I have been negotiating, organising and coordinating to make sure that the reclaimers are registered.
This article was submitted as part of the Imbila Yesu publication produced daily for the duration of the Winter School in 2022 (17-22 July 2022). It appeared in Edition 1, released on 19 July 2022.
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