The Inanda Wilderness Park in Durban, South Africa, initiative of Green Corridors is an inclusive public safe space that offers urban dwellers activities and educational programmes to entice people to venture outside and enjoy being in nature.

Several programmes of the Inanda Wilderness Park such as the active aging group or the group programmes with schools had to be postponed due to the South African lockdown in the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, virtual home programmes were created, aimed to ensure physical activity and mental stimulation during the quarantine period. In this programme, WhatsApp groups with the parents of creches, primary schools and high schools were created and videos with weekly age appropriate activities were sent into the groups. All activities were connected to the activities at the Wilderness Park and included natural items and things that could be easily found around the house to ensure active participation for all. However, some issues were encountered such as that not all phones could download the videos, issues of inadequate data to download the video and limited feedback from the parents. This programme is still ongoing.

Students working at the Inanda Wilderness Park were given upcycling projects to further develop the park. This included e.g. ergonomic outdoor benches using donated items and leftover poles that were used for the fence, an outdoor shelter as the park has limited shade within the outdoor space, wind chimes using bottle caps and wires, birds baths using old satellite dished and poles, as well as outdoor games such as swing ball, ring toss, ten pin bowling and a traditional game called Malabalaba.

As a result of Covid-19, Green Corridors has undergone budget cuts and thus there is only a limited budget for the Inanda Wilderness Park. In order to keep the park going, self-generating income ideas were developed which includes the selling of pallet urban gardening boxes with vegetable seedlings as well as the renting of parts of the park for kids birthday parties with a birthday activity package.

If you want to learn more about Green Corridors watch this video: Green Corridors on Youtube or check out Green Corridors Facebook page for more updates on the Inanda Wilderness Park.