Mitchell’s Plain Subcouncils 12 and 17 wrapped up their final meetings of 2025 last week, with the chairpersons honouring community heroes.
Elton Jansen began his chairman’s address on 17 November with praise for his Subcouncil 17 manager, Goodman Rorwana, who saved the life of his counterpart from subcouncil 12, Mcebisi Fetu, after finding him unconscious at his home.
He said: “If it weren’t for his quick thinking we would probably have been attending a funeral. He is indeed a hero. I know it must have been a terrible ordeal to find your colleague in that state.”
Subcouncil 12 chair Solomon Philander gave more details on Fetu’s recovery in his chairperson’s address on 20 November: “He is recovering very, very well. There’s much, much progress, so we just hope that he’ll pull through on this one, that he can join us very, very soon again, to continue the work that we have started.”
Neighbourhood-watch members honoured
Philander also took the opportunity to pay tribute to several Eastridge and Tafelsig neighbourhood-watch members who died this year.
“Many of them served or walked the night before they died,” he said.
He invited the women’s respective neighbourhood-watch chairs to pay tribute to each of them.
Eastridge watch chair Deirdre Petersen said: “We had a very sad 2025. Within three months we lost three members, Magdalene Miller, Elizabeth Carollus and Christine Campher. These members served for many, many years. They gave their life to the Eastridge community.
“Elizabeth was still patrolling the night before, Friday evening and Saturday she never woke up.”
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Stella Cornelissen, Tafelsig East Neighbourhood Watch chair, paid tribute to Dandeline Jantjies, Elizabeth Saal and Nuriman Gadija Samuels.
“We’re very, very sad,” Cornelissen said. “We can’t actually believe it, but somehow we must move forward and try to get more communities involved in what we are doing. “
All six women died of natural causes.
Eastridge and Tafelsig ward councillor Norman Adonis, a former neighbourhood watch chair, lit a candle in honour of the women.
“They are really fallen heroes,” he said. “They stood the test. They’ve done it well. They’ve walked the road with the community. They have respect of the community and that’s a valuable life lesson.”
More heroes
Woodlands ward councillor Joan Woodman also took the opportunity during the Subcouncil 17 meeting to praise traffic officers who had rushed to the aid of a woman in the area.
She said she had witnessed the chaos caused by the scene, during the school rush.
“I saw this shuffling of traffic officers and a female running with a baby in her arm, jumping into a vehicle.”
Woodman guessed from the circumstances that some sort of emergency was afoot, but she and onlookers were confused.
“I stood there and I was wondering, is this an abduction? Is a law enforcement chasing after them? How am I going to find out?”
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The answer came to her without any effort though. Woodman said that later that day she received a voicenote from a resident which gave the details of the emergency.
She played the voicenote to the meeting.
“One of our neighbour’s children was blue in the face and blood was coming from her nose,” the voicenote said. “These officers, I flagged them down while driving and they got into our car and drove it for us.”
According to the voicenote the officers immediately took control of the situation and drove the family directly to hospital.
“The child would have not made it if they hadn’t done so,” the relieved resident added in her message.
Woodman confirmed the officers had been traced and would receive awards for their life-saving actions.
Subcouncil chairperson Elton Jansen praised the officers for going beyond the call of duty.
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