May 29, 2003
By Lucille Davie
THE Mayoral Committee is about to embark on a series of roadshows in which they will visit all the 11 regions into which Johannesburg is divided, to get a taste for what's happening and what's not happening in these areas.
First off the starting blocks on 5 June is Region 4, the area west of the city and led by its dynamic and progressive Regional Director, Lawrence Boya. Region 4 has a great mix of facilities for the city dweller, particularly its open spaces: Emmarentia Dam, Zoo Lake, Melville Koppies, Florida Lake, Albert's Farm and the Johannesburg Botanic Garden.
It also boasts the Rand Afrikaans University, the SABC, and major hospitals like Milpark, Garden City and Helen Joseph. It has 13 libraries, 16 recreation centres, 10 community clinics and 16 swimming pools.
But it also has problem areas that need serious energy and investment in an effort to redress the backlogs of apartheid that still exist. Westbury, Newclare, Brixton and Riverlea are examples.
"It was difficult to decide what to select to show the Mayoral Committee," said Frances Feig, Regional Manager of Corporate Support in Region 4. She says there is active cross-pollination of projects, with the emphasis on putting people first in all of them.
But the main object of the roadshows in Region 4 is to "bring the Mayoral Committee in touch with what people in the region are doing". And that means showing them the bad things too, in the hope that they'll pull the right strings to get funding to the areas that most need it.
The roadshow will start with the hotspots in Brixton and then move on to the good news areas. First up is the Linden Swimming Pool, which is heated and was enclosed two years ago. It is used now by professional and provincial clubs, with daily programmes drawing many swimmers, including children with special needs and disabled people, both of whom benefit from exercising in a heated pool.
Next stop will be Windsor East, just north of Cresta Shopping Centre. The area is experiencing urban decay, with vagrants presenting a problem and genuinely finding it difficult to find accommodation, according to Feig. A possible solution is to institute an employment register for vagrants, thus encouraging them to find jobs.
Berario Recreation Centre will also be visited. The Centre is unusual in that it has become self-sufficient, employing 26 people in a range of different programmes.
Another good news story is to be seen at Riverlea, a badly-neglected area, but starting to turn its back on that neglect. A donation of 10 computers has breathed new life into the Recreation Centre. Ten children from 10 different schools were invited to learn the basics of finding their way around the computers, and they are no longer "scared of computers". The programme hopes to get other schools involved.
And then the bus will move on to one of the Region's showcase projects: the Dyna Housing Project in Westbury. A year ago the City provided funding, the residents provided their manpower, and now, a year on, Dina Flats are completely renovated, with the rent payment levels up 60%. Flat dwellers in Riverlea are asking for the same investment in their area.
The Mayoral Committee will be taken to the Danie Van Zyl Recreation Centre in Newlands to witness one of the successes of the Region's poverty alleviation projects. Previously unemployed, David Masilo was given a small piece of land at the Centre, to cultivate vegetables. A year later he now employs several assistants, and he sells R700 worth of spinach a month, harvested from his garden. He now has a further piece of land fenced off, and with a tractor donated by City Parks, is preparing more fields for cultivation.
Says Feig: "He suddenly has a reason to get up in the morning."
The group will then move off to Marks Parks in Emmarentia where there'll be a problems and queries session with business people from Region 4, and members of the Mayoral Committee. This will be followed by a similar session back in Newlands, this time with members of the local community.
At Marks Park there'll be a display of beautiful wire baskets, made by 15 previously unemployed women who were given basic basket-making training as part of another poverty alleviation project. They are now economically independent, and one woman has bought herself a house from the income she's generated.
Feig concludes: "We don't do things on a grand scale. We don't bite off more than we can chew. We want to be judged by the results we can achieve. What we do tackle, we make happen."
