The Move One Million movement is fast becoming a beacon of hope in the Goldfields as Jan Jacobs and his team fill potholes, fix roads, and clean up areas devastated by garbage without complaining or asking for financial assistance.
In a recent rating done of civil society movements in the various towns and cities in South Africa, Odendaalsrus was rated 12th, having notched 2 266 bags of filth.
Jacobs, widely known as a man who does not hesitate to get his hands dirty, and his Move One Million team always put their shoulder to the wheel to clean up the Goldfields.
On Friday, 29 September, they set off for Buren Street (at the Pink Cross) in Dagbreek, Welkom.
“It looked like a garbage dump there again – someone had to do something,” Jacobs says.
He acts wherever he sees the environment is dirty. He and his team never back down from a big task.
Jacobs and his team’s motto is “Together we can do it.”
During September they filled in the large, unsightly and very dangerous hole inside the circle at The Strip. The hole had been caused by a burst pipe, which later almost caused horrific accidents.
Also in September, two young people, Crystal Mumfort and Andries van Rhyn, helped Jacobs with another large tar surfacing project in Odendaalsrus.
They not only filled a pothole themselves, but also finished it off with a layer of tar. Motorists would not have even realised the hard work that was done without compensation.
At the beginning of September, Jacobs and his people had tackled Odendaalsrus and cleaned its streets and removed bags full of rubbish.
Jacobs and his team have systematically filled potholes and dangerous holes caused by pipe bursts throughout Welkom and Odendaalsrus since 2022.
He and his team have met with the mayor, and have been praised and supported by both the community and politicians for their selflesss contributions to making Welkom and Odendaalsrus a better place to live in.
In 2021 they tackled the Odendaalsrus-Welkom and Odendaalsrus-Phakisa roads, spending thousands of rands out of their own pockets before generous donations started pouring in.
