Ntirhisano opened its doors to the public on 1 March, and it has been a tiring but very rewarding few months - we have also been able to do many things that we are very proud of. Here's a summary of our different activities and an update on the projects run.
Learning activities
Every afternoon, children from the local community come to play games, paint, read, and learn. The children have been very enthusiastic about the centre because, without it, they would be out late when their parents came home from work. When we closed a week ago to finish the last touches of the construction, they came every day to ask when we were going to open again. The children who have come so far have been very young, but a few older ones have also come, and we are working to begin political education with the older children.
Collaboration with The Interim
We have had several meetings with organisations and people interested in
working with us. One of the organisations is called The Interim - a collective left-wing bookstore, which also organised different events in its space. Recently, the owner of the property they were renting kicked them
out. So we met to discuss how we could help each other - us with our space that we're willing to let them use, and them with their contacts and network that could help us scale up the project. The meeting was productive and we agreed to work together on several projects that the members of the collective were interested in. Some are interested in political education, others are musicians and wanted to do events with music within the space, and others are part of organisations within Salt River that are interested in working together.
Salt River Heritage Society and Children’s Movement
Thanks to the meeting with The Interim, we were able to contact the Salt River Heritage Society, an organisation that works in Salt River to combat gentrification and inequality, and to preserve the culture of struggle that has always existed in Salt River. We facilitated a meeting between the Salt River Heritage Society and another organisation called the Children's Movement, an organisation founded during apartheid that focuses its efforts on children to help combat social problems. Part of this philosophy is that children should teach and help each other.
They have many active projects and one of them has to do with teaching children how to sew. One of the things they do is menstrual pads that you can wash and use again. The director of the institute in Salt River spoke with the Heritage Society to say that many girls did not come to school when they had their period because they could not buy sanitary pads. The Heritage Society decided to order sanitary napkins from the Children's Movement to help with the problem. The meeting that we facilitated was to give the towels to the heritage society and explain how they work and also get to know each other. It was also a very good meeting and we were able to meet the Salt River Heritage Society (SRHS) which does a very good job in Salt River including gardens and orchards for the community, several murals that teach the history of Salt River, and many other things.
Salt River Community meeting
We also attended a community meeting about open land in Salt River and what should be done with it. The idea that the Heritage Society had was to use the land for a bookstore and a common space. But another organisation, the Salt River Residents Association (SRRA), was opposed to the idea, saying they wanted subsidised housing. But this organisation is a bit reactionary, for example, they are opposed to African people entering and living in Salt River. So this request for subsidised housing was not genuine but only proposed to oppose the Heritage Society. In the end, it was decided that there would be another meeting about the bookstore, but for now, the land would be used to have a market every month. This market would be an opportunity for the people of Salt River to make a little money from their interests.
Refugee camp in Kensington
In Kensington, there is a refugee camp. It is a large circus tent that is installed on an unused military base. The refugees come from many parts of Africa - most of them come from the DRC. We have been working with them for over a year. There are two activities running to help this community that has been brutally repressed by the South African state, and also by people who have been indoctrinated with xenophobic ideas.
Educational activities
First, we have been doing educational activities with the children of the countryside in collaboration with some members of the Interim. These activities have been a bit difficult thanks to the very delicate situation of the camp - there are two groups inside the tent that are against each other. They have different ideas about how they should live. The western part of the camp is very religious and they don't want to send their children to school. The eastern part is not religious and they send their children to school. The east side has been much more welcoming to us than the west, and that has made it a bit difficult for us because we want to help the whole camp and we don't want people on any side to not be able to be helped by us because of their politics or leaders. This is a problem that we are still thinking about how we can solve.
Community Garden
The other project that we are doing in the camp is a vegetable garden that we started there. Mzamani, one of our members, has a lot of experience with community gardens and took it upon himself to start the garden here. The refugees were very clear with the idea of planting plants that they had in their country of origin because it is much more difficult to find them in South Africa. Things like spinach and sweet potatoes. The garden was started very recently, but some plants are already starting to grow.
Last touches for renovations
Two weeks ago, we closed our doors again to finish the last of the renovations on the Community Center building and finally get the space in order. We built a kind of bar counter so that people can work; we also built a magazine rack to display our political pamphlets. The last thing we did that was very hard work was sanding the floor, and then varnishing it. Thanks to this we have been able to clean all the dirt left by the works, and finally, we feel that we can say that we have finished the renovations.
Post-renovation and excited for things to come:
After the renovations, we have opened again with a renewed sense of purpose, and with great ideas for the future. On Saturday we are going to have our official opening with all the groups that we have been collaborating with, there will also be music, thanks to some activist friends who are DJs with vinyl records. We also plan to start the newsletter again to keep a good flow of information. We are all very excited about the future!
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