Light at end of tunnel over shack blazes

Cape Town - Luthando Klaas stands in a pitch dark shack, the consulting room for his work as a traditional healer.

He lifts his hand to the roof, tugs at a black plastic packet and, the room fills with light. The light is not harsh and electric, but soft and natural.

Klaas, a resident of Mtshini Wam informal settlement in Joe Slovo Park, is South Africa’s first recipient of a “litre of light,” a low-tech device which feeds natural light through a watertight hole in the roof of a tin shack.

The device was pioneered in the shacklands of Indonesia, and knowledge of its simplicity and effectiveness is now being spread to informal settlements across the world.

It consists of three simple, cheap ingredients: water, a recycled plastic bottle and a few spoonfuls of bleach.

“This is going to be great for business. I have to close the door for privacy during consultations, but people – especially those from other cultures – get a bit creeped out by all these things in the dark,” says Klaas, pointing to the muti and calabashes on the ground.

“Besides, now I can keep an eye on my pet snake. He won’t be able to creep up on me so easily any more.”

Klaas is one of the leading members in Mtshini Wam’s reblocking initiative. In a few short months the cluttered, dense informal settlement has been systematically demolished and rebuilt. Clusters of shacks now huddle around easily accessible open spaces.

The idea is that areas for recreation double up as arteries for basic services – fire trucks, ambulances, sanitation – to be able to penetrate into the community.

“Shack fires were a big problem in this area before,” said Khaya Nozombile, another recipient of a litre of light in his shack nearby.

The litre of light has allowed Nozobile and Klaas to refrain from using candles – a common cause of shack fires around Cape Town – during the day.

The community-based reblocking initiative is being facilitated by Cape Town’s branch of Shack Dwellers International and the Community Organisation Resource Centre.

On Thursday, these organisations were joined by Touching the Earth Lightly, an eco-design company, and students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, from the US, to demonstrate to City of Cape Town officials the potential for transforming informal settlements into more habitable areas where the risk of fires is greatly reduced.

With the litre of light, Touching the Earth Lightly’s arsenal includes a vertical vegetable garden which runs up the outside wall of a shack. The irrigation system kept the plants nourished and acted as an additional barrier to spreading fires, explained the company’s Stephen Lamb.

“The city has been looking for innovative ways to reduce shack fires and to get services to informal settlements within our boundaries,” said JP Smith, the mayoral committee member for safety and security.

“I am very proud of Mtshini Wam community. This is exactly the sort of thing that we would like to see happening in other informal settlements.”

The different organisations involved in the reblocking and “greenblocking” (to use Lamb’s term) of Mtshini Wam will be petitioning the city to fund a wider roll-out of this initiative.

- Cape Argus

Police told not to use rubber bullets

Police officers are no longer allowed to use rubber bullets or shotguns on protesters, according to a newspaper report.

Beeld reported on Saturday the order was made at the end of December by Lt-Gen Elias Mawela from the police's reaction unit to all police officers in the country.

This follows widespread use of force by police, over the past two years, mainly in protests over service delivery. The use of force and rubber bullets was highlighted by the death of Andries Tatane last April during a protest in Ficksburg.

According to the communiqué by Mawela there were a large number of crowd control incidents where a large number of rubber bullets were used over the last few months.

"Some of these incidents led to negative publicity in the media which led to questions about the use of rubber bullets in such situations," he reportedly wrote.

Rubber bullets are, according to regulation 262, to be used as a last resort.  

In spite of the regulation and that supplies of rubber bullets were recently decreased, there were still serious injuries," he said.

"The use of rubber bullets and bird-shot must therefore summarily be halted." Negotiation remains the first option, then pyrotechnics (blanks), water cannons or tear gas can be used.

The goal must be to defuse conflict with minimum force.

- Timelive

Number’s up for apartheid-era Native Yards (NY)

The offensive NY street names, which stand for “Native Yard”, are the City of Cape Town’s next target as it plans to put 52 NY name change recommendations out for public comment.

The NY street name changes follow the process whereby names of 31 streets in the city, including Hendrik Verwoerd Drive and JB Hertzog Boulevard, were put on a list of recommendations for change by the city’s new naming committee.

The committee, at its inaugural meeting, submitted the changes for public debate. In the new year, the city is to turn its focus on the NY street names which can be found in Gugulethu.

Apartheid planners did not give names to any of the roads in the township, and all were simply numbered as “Native Yards”.

Naming committee chairman Brett Herron said the committee decided at the last meeting that the naming proposals of the previous panel of experts, headed by Rhoda Kadalie, be submitted for extensive public participation. “The city’s public participation unit was tasked with preparing a public participation programme. That programme will roll out during February and March,” Herron said.

He said it was the committee’s intention to deal with the NY names in the next few months and the process would be taken to the public, and the city would conduct extensive public meetings.

“Yes, it is the committee’s intention to deal with the NY names in the coming months. NY1, Gugulethu is already on the list going out for public participation,” Herron said.

He said the naming and renaming process was an important process of city-building.

“It is an important part of our commitment to building an inclusive city. For the process to be successful, it is essential that we encourage and facilitate extensive and comprehensive public participation. This is so important to the successful implementation of renaming that a special meeting of the committee, to consider the proposed public participation programme, is warranted and this will be scheduled as soon as possible,” Herron said.

He said the committee’s next meeting, which was scheduled for this week, was cancelled because no new agenda items needed discussion, given that the council had been in recess.

All 52 NY name change proposals were submitted by the PAC when the process opened in 2007.

PAC councillor Anwar Adams said: “We are going to take a look at all the names again. We submitted all those names, but we’re going to need a refresher. But the names were all activists that were relevant round about the 1960s. The NYs must be changed.” - Cape Times

Woolies donates over 4000 trees

Woolworths is celebrating Arbour Week by donating 4309 indigenous trees to a low income housing project in the Western Cape and schools in Limpopo and the Western Cape.

Woolworths will donate 2309 trees to Kuyasa – a low income housing project in Khayelitsha.

Each household will receive a tree. To ensure the sustainability of the venture, the households will receive basic training about the need for trees, composting, mulching and watering. The project will create short-term employment for unemployed residents, who will work as community based educators, teaching fellow residents about the importance of trees and how to care for them.

One of their first tasks will be overseeing the planting of the trees.

In addition, 1000 trees have been donated to primary schools in Limpopo and the Western Cape. As members of the Woolworths Trust EduPlant programme, the schools have already been encouraged to develop sustainable gardens. These trees will be sourced from Woolworths Trust EduPlant school nurseries, contributing to income generation for the schools. Woolworths Trust EduPlant programme is a leading schools food gardening and greening programme that promotes the growing of food using permaculture techniques.

Planting will be overseen by Food and Trees for Africa – a non profit organisation working on environmental issues. This initiative forms part of Woolworths Good business journey to help our communities, our country and our world.

National Arbor Week takes place from 1 to 7 September 2008 and aims to motivate schools, businesses and communities to plant, sponsor and look after South Africa’s natural tree heritage.

“Trees provide many benefits for the environment. These include producing oxygen and reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - thus helping to address climate change” says Jeunesse Park, founder of Food and Trees for Africa.

“As a fast growing business in the food, clothing and homeware sector we are particularly concerned about supporting the protection of natural resources. Arbor Week reminds us that we have to be more aware of our impact on the world around us. For Woolworths, this project is one of many greening projects to follow,” says Justin Smith, Woolworths Good business journey manager.

Planting will commence before the end of September 2008. The total number of trees donated by Woolworths since the announcement of the Good business journey in April 2007 now stands at over 5000. In line with the Good business journey plan, Woolworths aims to plant another 12,000 trees by 2012. - Supermarket.co.za