Uthando is a charitable organization that concentrates on improving lives for people in the townships. The vast majority of these people are black and the programs they fund provide community programs for children, families, and seniors concentrating on educational and social improvements. They can help build new buildings such as schools, senior centres or provide programming for music, childcare, a food share project using an urban shared garden. They have been operating since 2007 and provides tours for those wanting to sample some of their community projects and learn about the challenges of the apartheid legacy.
Our tour was located in Cape Town’s largest township, Khayelitsha, home to about 1 million people. Located near the airport, the majority of the residents live in makeshift metal corrugated sheds with no electricity, running water or sanitary system. Formed in 1985, many people were forced to relocate here from other areas of Cape Town as a result of the Group Areas Act. Cape Town used this Act to segregate neighbourhoods into races to leave the prime areas for whites, and the lesser areas for coloured people and the poorest areas for Blacks. Khayelitsha has expanded into a tightly packed township with significant numbers of immigrants coming in from the Eastern Cape and Northern Africa areas. Despite the overturn of Apartheid 25 years ago, Cape Town remains economically and geographically fractured along racial lines and Khayelisha remains one of the poorest townships.
The Uthando (meaning “Love”) tour was interesting and inspiring but worrisome. Change is happening but my guess it will take many generations before any significant parity can be reached among the races. The gap is so large and so ingrained that I can’t imagine how it can possibly be achieved. There is great work being done by Uthando and other community based organizations but it seems to be a drop in the bucket in terms of what needs to be done. The government is also working towards this goal by building housing for the townships but the amount that needs to be built for this township alone is staggering let alone for all the other townships. And building new housing in the townships for the current inhabitants, only serves to continue the cycle of segregation. It’s better housing, but it’s still located far outside the city in an area that continues to have poor educational opportunities, and lacks facilities children to grow up in a healthy and safe manner.
Our tour guide was Xolani and there were 5 of us in the tour. He let us try to say his name and was quite patient listening to us pronounce his name incorrectly. The “X” in his name is a clicking sound that us westerners do not use in our speech. It is hard to get the click right and smoothly into the next vowel sound without a pause.
We saw three projects on our tour:
1. Zizamele Educare – This project involved Uthando providing funds to construct a building for preschool and elementary school care. The project allowed the kids to be looked after in a safe manner while their parents were away at work. With a centre fully completed, the program is now eligible for government subsidies, something that couldn’t have been accomplished without the building in place. The director of the centre had been fundraising but it would have taken years and years without the investment that Uthando provided last year. The major donor was a travel company based in Sweden.
Daycare costs seem reasonable at 200 Rand per month (about $18/mo) which includes two hot meals per day, but with the annual average income in the townships at an equivalent of $2,000 CDN, it’s still a major cost for families. During our visit we got to interact with the kids. One of the preschoolers was curious about my straight hair and came up to touch it while I was sitting on the carpet. The preschool room looked similar to one you would see in Canada except the room seemed small given the number of children.
We also checked into the grade 1 room with older kids. It would have been better to have been able to communicate in the same language. I tried to get a boy playing with about two dozen animal figurines to give some up to another boy who only had one figurine and it was broken in half. But he wasn’t going to have anybody of that nonsense.
2. Ikhaya Gardens at Isikhokelo School. We were entertained by a very enthusiastic gardener, Xolisa, who started up a micro farm on the grounds of an elementary school in 2013. The farming is organic and the produce is used by the school and is also available to the general community. Xolisa portrays gardening is a cool thing to do, trying to change the stereotype that gardening is only something that older women do. It was interesting see the progress of the garden and the beautiful produce that was being grown.
3. Masibathande “Lets Love them” Seniors Project is a seniors’ organization with 186 members. The organization is managed by Thembi Gecelo. There are two kitchen staff that prepare meals for the seniors and an administrator. The project provides senior citizens who lived before and during apartheid and now provides opportunities for social interaction and healthy living programs.
The “Oldies” as they affectionately known come to the centre for approximately six hours 3 times a week. The activities include such things such as exercise, workshops, health monitoring by health officials in their centre, arts and crafts. They also get involved in fundraising to support the centre and other worthy causes.
Our tour involved us participating in their day program. It was the official opening for the Khayelitsha location and there was some speeches, entertainment from a choir and dance group and then the seniors sang for us. Some of the tour group were brought up to the front to dance wth the seniors, but fortunately I wasn’t selected. A group photo was taken outside and we then were taken back to our hotels.
By this time it was in the early afternoon. We decided to head out to the District 6 Museum, all about the forced relocation of non-whites from the District 6 neighbourhood. Crazy to think that this happened in the 1970’s and that the government was so successful in the systematic destruction of human rights.
We end up at the Truth Coffee shop at the recommendation of our the hotel desk clerks, Prince and Simon. Fabulous. Dinner was a quick salad at Da Vinci’s again.
Our tour was located in Cape Town’s largest township, Khayelitsha, home to about 1 million people. Located near the airport, the majority of the residents live in makeshift metal corrugated sheds with no electricity, running water or sanitary system. Formed in 1985, many people were forced to relocate here from other areas of Cape Town as a result of the Group Areas Act. Cape Town used this Act to segregate neighbourhoods into races to leave the prime areas for whites, and the lesser areas for coloured people and the poorest areas for Blacks. Khayelitsha has expanded into a tightly packed township with significant numbers of immigrants coming in from the Eastern Cape and Northern Africa areas. Despite the overturn of Apartheid 25 years ago, Cape Town remains economically and geographically fractured along racial lines and Khayelisha remains one of the poorest townships.
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| Khayelitsha Township from the N2 Expressway |
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| We saw several kilometres of unsatisfactory living accommodation. |
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| Many of the homes have additions out the back to house more people. |
The Uthando (meaning “Love”) tour was interesting and inspiring but worrisome. Change is happening but my guess it will take many generations before any significant parity can be reached among the races. The gap is so large and so ingrained that I can’t imagine how it can possibly be achieved. There is great work being done by Uthando and other community based organizations but it seems to be a drop in the bucket in terms of what needs to be done. The government is also working towards this goal by building housing for the townships but the amount that needs to be built for this township alone is staggering let alone for all the other townships. And building new housing in the townships for the current inhabitants, only serves to continue the cycle of segregation. It’s better housing, but it’s still located far outside the city in an area that continues to have poor educational opportunities, and lacks facilities children to grow up in a healthy and safe manner.
Our tour guide was Xolani and there were 5 of us in the tour. He let us try to say his name and was quite patient listening to us pronounce his name incorrectly. The “X” in his name is a clicking sound that us westerners do not use in our speech. It is hard to get the click right and smoothly into the next vowel sound without a pause.
We saw three projects on our tour:
1. Zizamele Educare – This project involved Uthando providing funds to construct a building for preschool and elementary school care. The project allowed the kids to be looked after in a safe manner while their parents were away at work. With a centre fully completed, the program is now eligible for government subsidies, something that couldn’t have been accomplished without the building in place. The director of the centre had been fundraising but it would have taken years and years without the investment that Uthando provided last year. The major donor was a travel company based in Sweden.
2. Ikhaya Gardens at Isikhokelo School. We were entertained by a very enthusiastic gardener, Xolisa, who started up a micro farm on the grounds of an elementary school in 2013. The farming is organic and the produce is used by the school and is also available to the general community. Xolisa portrays gardening is a cool thing to do, trying to change the stereotype that gardening is only something that older women do. It was interesting see the progress of the garden and the beautiful produce that was being grown.
3. Masibathande “Lets Love them” Seniors Project is a seniors’ organization with 186 members. The organization is managed by Thembi Gecelo. There are two kitchen staff that prepare meals for the seniors and an administrator. The project provides senior citizens who lived before and during apartheid and now provides opportunities for social interaction and healthy living programs.
Our tour involved us participating in their day program. It was the official opening for the Khayelitsha location and there was some speeches, entertainment from a choir and dance group and then the seniors sang for us. Some of the tour group were brought up to the front to dance wth the seniors, but fortunately I wasn’t selected. A group photo was taken outside and we then were taken back to our hotels.
By this time it was in the early afternoon. We decided to head out to the District 6 Museum, all about the forced relocation of non-whites from the District 6 neighbourhood. Crazy to think that this happened in the 1970’s and that the government was so successful in the systematic destruction of human rights.
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| District 6 Museum |
We end up at the Truth Coffee shop at the recommendation of our the hotel desk clerks, Prince and Simon. Fabulous. Dinner was a quick salad at Da Vinci’s again.
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| The Truth Cafe |
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