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Garden of Healing unveiled
- Details
- 01 November 2012
Loved ones who had died in vehicle accidents were remembered at a moving ceremony that closed Transport Month, at which a Garden of Healing was opened.
DEATH stalks the nation's roads: about 14 000 lives are lost each year on the streets, highways and by-ways of South Africa.
With these horrific figures in mind, Joburg's portfolio head of transport, Rehana Moosajee, held a sombre public commemoration for all those who have died in accidents and unveiled a Garden of Healing to close Transport Month 2012.
This healing remembrance was held on 31 October at the Metro Centre in Braamfontein. It fell under the City's Transport Month 2012 theme of "Working together to provide a safe and reliable transport system – caring is sharing!"
At the start of the commemoration, Moosajee thanked everyone for taking the time to attend. People in the city should see each other as fellow human beings who had come together because they had either been touched or affected by road calamities, she said.
"This year has been a tough year in the transport department. We have buried far too many children [who] lost their lives on our roads," she said. "I don't believe they are [all] accidents, which is why I don't refer to them as such. I think they should be called crashes."
The Garden of Healing was held at the Metro Centre to show that the government and every resident should take serious stock of what was happening on the city's roads, Moosajee added. It was an attempt to unite and send vibrations of peace, healing, love and compassion and join forces for safer roads in our country.
Connie Bapela, the Speaker of council, and the youngest person at the commemoration, Gabugelo, who lost his twin sister in a car crash in Meadowlands this year, led the crowd to the front lawns of the Metro Centre.
Here, participants broke into groups, each with a chaplin, to share their stories and remember those who had lost their lives. Thereafter, they formed a circle around the tree in the centre of the Garden of Healing, for a minute of silence. They could write the names of those who had died in accidents and a short message on white pebbles, which were placed under the tree.
The Garden of Healing was created by City Parks, the municipal-owned entity that manages the City's parks, cemeteries, open green areas, street trees and conserved spaces. It is a place for people to unite and remember those whose lives were suddenly taken.
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