NTHABELENG MOFOKENG

Nominee's Province:
Free State

Age:

Project Name/Description:

More info:

Nthabeleng Mofokeng (30) is a University of Pretoria Mechanical Engineering graduate. In 2020 there was a clean-up campaign in her community organised by the local youth who wanted to clean illegal dumping sites to turn them into food gardens. Nthabeleng joined the call and organised other young women. The clean-up campaign was later registered as Qwakanda E Ntjha NPC, known popularly as Qwakanda. Nthabeleng Mofokeng is Qwakanda’s treasurer. Another Qwakanda initiative was the #90Minutes for Qwa-Qwa Clean-Up Campaign, which attracted an international climate change initiative called Gigatone Challenge. Gigatone is a globally decentralised climate action strategy with equity at heart. Mofokeng was appointed team leader for Qwa-Qwa, having stopped 37 tonnes of carbon emissions while assisting over 100 households with food. “The most rewarding part about working with Qwakanda is seeing how our initiatives, small or big, propel our local government to act,” she says. Through Mofokeng’s leadership, Qwakanda has so far hired 14 permanent staff and created temporary employment by buying organic waste from the under privileged and turning it into compost. They also made a deal with a major cellular network company to build zero-emissions bicycle trailers that help with collecting organic waste from households, businesses and illegal dumping sites before they reach landfill sites. Again, the environmental activism movement partnered with one of the local malls in Qwa-Qwa to host regular clean-up campaigns. Young people who join the campaign receive food vouchers worth R250.