The Free State Working on Fire Dewetsdorp Team celebrated Wetlands Month in February at Morojaneng Park. Various stakeholders, such as members of the Community Work Programme (CWP), Department of Health and Mangaung

Metro Municipality, attended the event. The Working on Fire Free State Community Fire Awareness Officer (CFAO ) and the Fire Awareness Facilitator taught learners from Metsimaphodi Secondary School who attended the event about the importance of wetlands, how they could be preserved and how they related to fire.

This year’s theme for World Wetlands Day was ‘Wetlands for Disaster Risk Reduction’. Wetlands play an important role in helping to provide communities with resilience to natural hazards such as flooding caused by storms, cyclones, storm surges and tsunamis.

Unfortunately, wetlands are often viewed as waste land. World Wetlands Month is an annual opportunity to raise public awareness and promote the value of wetlands.

“We taught Grade 10 learners what wetlands are, about their importance and, at the end of the day’s festivities, we conducted a cleaning campaign at one of the wetlands in Dewetsdorp.

The event was a success and the children enjoyed clearing litter around the wetland as they understood the importance of wetlands,”

says Glodinah Mofokeng, a CFAO . Working on Fire took the opportunity to lead a clean-up campaign of one of the wetlands within the town precinct and, with the assistance of the Metsimaphodi learners, managed to remove all the litter that polluted the area.