GO SLOW IN SLOWTOWN

Life can be fast – get up, go for a jog, a quick shower, drop off the kids, grab breakfast and coffee on your way to the office to start your day.

This is not what Sedgefield is about.  Take your time, because you are in a slow town.  A town does not choose to be a slow town randomly; you need to meet certain criteria as set out by the Cittaslow movement in Italy, before you can adopt the name “slow town”.

Sedgefield earned this name in 2010 and was the first town (and thus far the only town) in South Africa to be awarded with that title.  South African now joins the list of slow towns of the world.  These towns can be found in some unexpected countries like Japan and South Korea in the East to Denmark and Finland in the North and USA and Canada in the West and even Down Under boasts with three slow towns.

A very apt symbol was chosen as the slow town emblem – the angulated tortoise.  In front of the tourism office you will find a mosaic tortoise, a project which was implemented by an NGO to develop job creation and skills training for unemployed local people.  These mosaic art works gives Sedgefield a unique identity.  When you stroll through town and The Island (a suburb of Sedgefield) you will stumble across some of these mosaic features.

Take your time (like a tortoise) and explore Sedgefield!

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DID YOU KNOW?

Sedgefield has a Tortoise Rescue Squad of Island Conservancy volunteers. A building contractor can contact one of them at Sedgefield Island Conservancy on Tel: 044-343 2448 48 hours before clearing a plot for development so that a team can be assembled to comb the area and remove any residing tortoises to a safe location. They can also be contacted about any tortoise needing help.

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Be not afraid to go slow, be afraid to stand still