Home The EcoCity Concept City of Johannesburg The EcoVillage The Co-operatives Youth Environmental Co-operatives Iteke Waste Recycling Co-operative Shova Lula Cycle Co-operative EcoBanking EcoBuilders Community Ownership Energy Co-operative EcoVillage: a vision of the future The Trustees Acknowledgements	Youth Environmental Co-operatives YEP – Youth Environment Project an EcoCity youth project is achieving a dual purpose. It is ensuring that Gauteng develops its own generation of green soldiers and making eco-programmes more available to tourists. The Youth Environment Project (YEP) is training young people in environmental awareness. It is also running an ecotourist business. The YEP’s young members own and run their own co-operative and they have acquired a set of skills that will stand them in good stead as they set about entering the labour market. Its members have conducted awareness-raising workshops, reaching out to 700 young people since their establishment. They use green drama, poetry, song in getting young people actively involved in projects. The YEP is active in waste recycling, tree planting, food security, cycling and the elimination of alien trees. The eco-tourist component of the programme has involved training these young people to be tour guides through the Gauteng Tourism Authority. A grant from the Swiss South Africa Co-operation (linked to the Swiss Development Corporation) has enabled the youth to get the training they need and to set themselves up in a business. They are using the Ivory Park EcoVillage during the WSSD as on-the-job training experience. After the summit they will run regular tours to ecotourist spots around Gauteng. Wilderocke Farm wilderocke Farm is a rambling four-hectare property, also known as the Uri-Eco-Centre, the Xhosa name for the Jukskei River which runs through it. It has provided small group training in sustainable living for both local and international students for the past 10 years. Its approach is practical and shows students how they can live more sustainably and help encourage their communities to do the same. Courses at the farm include permaculture design and organic agriculture through young people’s ecological induction. More advanced courses include ecological water management and river ecology, organic animal husbandry, sustainable building technologies, establishment of worker co-operatives and EcoVillage design. The site is open to all schools for day tours where they can learn about practical day-to-day issues of sustainable development. Wilderocke, or Uri Ecocentre, works with the EcoCity Youth Environment Programme to train Ivory Park’s young residents to work in their communities. One of the key factors in global sustainable development is to ensure that the next generation takes the lessons of the present to protect the globe. Local initiatives like the Wilderocke Farm and the YEP are essential to ensure that the commitments made at the WSSD are followed through in the rest of the 21st century. The site has a rammed earth structure which acts as the welcome centre, two dams fed by the Juskei river and a sophisticated wetland system for purifying the polluted river water. The centre is also an important historical and cultural living museum. On the site there is a cave that was used both by African Stone Age man, ancient Khoi! San people and more recently, in the last few hundred centuries, by Xhosa people who lived a hunter-gatherer life in this part of the world. Plans for the farm include its further development as a youth training centre but also the development of a South meets East healing and meditation centre.