Tebogo: Against all odds

Name: Tebogo Peega
Community issue: Enviroment
Hometown: Soweto, Gauteng

When Tebogo was a Grade 11 student in 2012, she decided to take action in her community through a social initiative called the “Community for Climate” where she mobilised her peers and community members to clean up the garden area in her school and plant vegetables there.  The intention of her social initiative project was to use the garden to teach young people and members of her community about the environment.

Nevertheless, despite her best intentions she found that her community action project wasn’t without its obstacles. Tebogo found that convincing her fellow peers to join her in her environmental drive was her biggest challenge. She was mocked by her peers for picking up rubbish on the school grounds during break time, an activity that was associated with being a punishment exercise used by teacher’s at the school. In spite of these challenges and obstacles, Tebogo forged ahead with her environmental initiative and managed to educate a small group of her peers about the importance of preserving and maintaining one’s environment.