Park creates jobs and leisure in rural North West village
In the deep rural village of Koffiekraal near Zeerust in North West, a family have taken it upon themselves to establish a recreational park for the community and create jobs.
“We saw the need of a park after realising there is no venue to host weddings or graduations for pre-school [pupils] around [the area]. People were travelling over 100km to Rustenburg or almost 70km to Zeerust just to have a place to take pictures for their weddings,” said Maria Seleka, who together with her husband Israel Seleka run the park at the back of their house.
The park, named Seleka Park, sports two swimming pools – one for children and one for adults – flowers, and a neatly tended lawn. Locals used the park for leisure, weddings, and graduation ceremonies.
“There is also a high demand for matric dances; for that we need a hall,” said Seleka. There was also a need to extend the park and build a guesthouse for patrons. The park had created temporary jobs for at least 15 local people. “If we are hosting a bigger event the number of workers also increases,” she said.
On Saturday, the Selekas hosted a Valentine’s competition for the community. There was no entry fee and all contestants needed to do was to wear their best red and white colours and be able to answer a set of questions from a panel of three judges.
Ululation and whistling erupted as elderly couple Nick, 70, and Edna Galo, 52, won the best couple category. The Galos took to the stage to show the youngsters how was it done in their time. They slowly moved side by side, moving well with the beat of music played in the background; then Nick moved a few paces ahead of Edna and turned to face her as they locked hands and slowly danced their way to the R1000 winner’s cash prize.
“We were not expecting to win, we just doing this for fun and show young people that we have been in the game…” said Nick. “We never rehearsed. We walked into the park and decided to be part of the fun, now we are R1000 richer,” he said.
Maria Seleka said she was excited that the park was gradually unearthing local talent. “We used money from our minibus taxi and brick-making project to plough back to the community through this Valentine competition. It was all fun and next year’s event promises to be exciting,” she said. The Galos were expected to return next year to defend their title.