December 6, 2001
By Lucille Davie
IN the middle of Hillbrow's dense flatlands, where unemployment runs high and crime is commonplace, Joubert Park is a green oasis - and a surprisingly tranquil one too.
The park has become a favourite spot for street photographers, with around a dozen scattered on benches waiting for customers to pose amongst the elegant trees and green grass, in the 99-year-old glass Victorian conservatory or in the 86-year-old Johannesburg Art Gallery.
The photographers have another function too: they carry whistles to alert one another to possible criminal activity. In the words of one photographer: "Crime - these days it's okay."
Even in mid-week, a great many locals come here to relax - there are many sleeping bodies scattered on the grass, and many more chatting on the park benches. There is a barefoot Shembi preacher in an ankle-length white robe, holding a wooden staff, with bead necklaces, and a skin strip around his head, preaching to whoever will listen. And two women spontaneously singing and clapping next to the fountain.
The focal point of the park is the now defunct fountain, surrounded by conifers, oaks, planes, jacarandas, and tipiana trees dropping their yellow blossoms.
Joubert Park was one of the first open spaces for Johannesburg's inner city, proclaimed in 1906 but planned in 1887 and named after Boer War hero, Commandant-General PJ Joubert. On the site is the Johannesburg Art Gallery, a classic building designed by famous British architect Edwin Lutyens and opened in 1915, with additions made in 1940 and 1986.
Joubert Park is managed by the Johannesburg Parks Agency, who, together with other bodies, are busy cleaning up the park, and greening the area. One of the first moves is to relocate the adjacent taxi rank to Bree and Sauer Streets, and then protect the park with large taxi-unfriendly speed bumps around the perimeter.
The local community has been encouraged to become involved in the upkeep of the park. There is a Parks Ambassadors Programme in which volunteers spend time cleaning the park, get training to become guides and help look after security at the park.
And clean it is - the fountain, although it contains no water, is clean; the grass is spotless and the bins are not overflowing. And there's plenty of energy and time going in to make Joubert Park live again, in particular the GreenHouse Project, child and family centre Lapeng and the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
The GreenHouse Project, initiated in 1993 by Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, in partnership with the City of Johannesburg and the Danish Cooperation for Environment & Development (DANCED), is creating an environmental resource and development centre at Joubert Park. The estimated cost of the initiative is R26-million.
The broad aim of the GreenHouse Project is to develop a clear, practical knowledge base for making greater Johannesburg a green city. It is a section 21 company with a team of five people, and besides Earthlife Africa, its other partners are the City of Johannesburg, and the Sustainable Energy and Environment for Development Programme (SEED).
"We will be renovating some buildings in the park, and building new buildings. At present we are renovating the glass and timber conservatory at a cost of around R2,5-million - making it secure and waterproof and replacing glass," says Vanessa Black, programme Co-ordinator of the Project. It is hoped it will be ready for the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in September 2002.
Further plans for the conservatory are to reduce the size of the pond in the middle, create a reception area, a shop, an information and exhibition space, demonstration gardens, and reduce the number of exotic plants in the conservatory and replace them with a mixture of local and exotic plants. "We want it to become a meeting place for people."
Further Project plans include the development of a fully functioning resource centre that would include a library, a computer centre, call centre, workshop, information and exhibition areas. An outdoor amphitheatre is also planned.
The Project is contributing to fulfilling some of the aims of Agenda 21, the global plan for sustainable development adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
"Chapter 28 focuses on implementing Agenda 21 at a local level through cross-sectoral partnerships and community participation. We recognise that Johannesburg is an urban metropolis in Africa that attracts thousands of people looking for a better life. The Project is committed to transforming our megacity into a sustainable urban settlement with a better quality of life for all," says Black.
In keeping with green building principles, bricks from the destruction of some of the small buildings on the site will be used to build new offices and the environmental and resource centre. "We will also be using straw bales in the building operation, and creating turf roofs on the new buildings," Black adds.
It is believed that three storeys is a minimum height to create a stack effect for passive ventilation and cooling, which allows for exhaust air to be drawn up through the space and expelled from the top of the building. The building will also be sensitive to sun angles and heat and cold retention. Furthermore, storm water run-off from the paving will be channelled into storage reservoirs.
A Child and Family Resource Service, Lapeng (Tswane for 'at home'), established in 1997 and managed by the Gauteng Department of Education, is being funded by Unicef and the Gauteng Department of Arts and Culture. It is housed in the north-east corner of the park. The main purpose of the project is to develop a safety net for at-risk children and families in the inner city area, through creative, artistic activities and partnerships. It is housed in the north-eastern corner of the park, and the building is currently undergoing renovations. The Art Gallery in the park is offering art education to caregivers of Lapeng.
Lapeng has a programme in which it educates unemployed parents, particularly mothers, in the Joubert Park and Hillbrow areas. Parents are offered art and Montessori classes. This empowers the women to start day-care centres for the children in the area. At present there are 60 day-care centres catering for working parents and there are a further 30 parents being trained at Lapeng.
"Every second building around the Park has a day-care centre," says Leon Mdiya, Project Co-ordinator of Lapeng.
Every Friday volunteer parents fetch 60-100 children from the centres and bring them to Lapeng, where they get tuition from an artist. Parents pay R50 month for this and those who cannot pay are encouraged to offer their services.
"What is novel about our programme is that we are getting parents actively involved in the education of their children, not just getting involved when there is a problem with their children, but learning themselves as well," adds Mdiya.
On weekends a maths and science programme called Count is held, and both parents and children attend. "We get up to 50 people attending the classes, with parents going home to teach their children."
The Johannesburg Art Gallery is also making its contribution to the rejuvenation of Joubert Park: at the beginning of the year the Joubert Park Art Project kicked off with 2 000 people attending the opening ceremony which included a fire sculpture, karaoke, theatre performances, and a self-vision exercise in which found objects were interpreted.
In addition, workshops have been held throughout the year, offering photography skills to the park photographers, a chess mask workshop, and a dance workshop. A call to artists has led to a collaboration of local and overseas artists to decorate the park buildings with murals, to create sculptures for the area and hopefully, to work out a way to permanently fix the fountain (make it vandal-proof).
In a reflection of the times, an exhibition called Who's watching Who, put together by British artist Michael Coombs, consisting of security cameras cast in plaster of Paris, was erected in the park and the Art Gallery. And planned for 24 December is a tower of bibles, donated by the public, available for the Joubert Parkers to take on the day. It is an idea by Pretoria artist Abrie Fourie, who is hoping to collect 5 000 bibles in a range of different languages.
Saturdays in Joubert Park are not to be missed: you can catch the full congregation of the Shembi church: hundreds of worshippers and preachers in full swing. Thank goodness it's a passive recreation area, which means that no soccer balls will come flying into the chanting crowds as soccer in the park is prohibited.
