Act 2: Testing the Waters
Introduction
Since our project changed directions three weeks ago, we’ve made significant headway in Flamingo Crescent in the mobilization stage of the project. Throughout our time thus far, community commitment has grown as strengthen our working relationships and prepare to make tangible developments with the layout plan, local networking, and organizing savings.
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Scene Summaries
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Scene 1: A Taste of Flamingo
After touring another potential working site, we took a tour of Flamingo Crescent and met community leaders. On the tour, although we noticed some safety concerns, we found a serious commitment to the upgrading plan and strong leadership within the community, a vital facet lacking from 7de Laan.
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Scene 2: Getting to Know Community Leaders
On our second day in Flamingo Crescent, we got the chance to meet the community leaders who we would be working with. Representatives from CORC and ISN who were also present gave us a background of the settlement and the roles that they play in the reblocking process. After introductions, we embarked on a name-tag making exercise where each person in the room shared something about themselves, a humbling experience for everyone.
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Scene 3: Cluster Meetings in Flamingo
After our first few days in Flamingo, we attended a cluster meeting to see how it was organized and to introduce our project to community members rather than just community leaders. The cluster meetings are a unique way to track enumeration and hold community members accountable. At the meeting, a confrontation gave us some insight into community dynamics.
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Scene 4: Introduction to Mtshini Wam
The project team visited Mtshini Wam along with Scott, Lorraine, Leon, and four Flamingo residents: Auntie Marie, Elizabeth, Mark, and Nigel. This was the group’s first introduction to Leon, the project manager, and he walked us around the settlement to show us the results of a pilot reblocking project. We saw examples of vertical gardens, sewage pipes where individual toilets would be installed, and the Litre of Light project. This encounter greatly benefited the residents by showing them what to expect in their settlement. It also gave the project team ideas for aesthetic improvements such as gardens, and practical enhancements like the Litre of Light and toilet placement in respect to shacks.
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Scene 5: Kuku Town Visit Provides Example
We went with Sizwe from CORC and several community members to another informal settlement, Kuku Town, to get an idea of the reblocking construction process. We gained valuable insight into how the settlement was laid out and how the community liaison organized the construction process to support the savings scheme. It also gave the Flamingo representatives a chance to see what would be happening in their community.
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Scene 6: All Parties Come Together
The goal of this meeting was to bring together the government, NGOs, community leaders, and students to determine what lay ahead for Flamingo Crescent. Savings and reblocking would be dealt with by CORC and ISN, while services such as water and sewer would be dealt with by the city. It was confirmed that the sewer contractor would arrive on time, but unlikely that any significant ground breaking would take place before the year was over due to the contractor’s holiday period.
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Scene 7: Library Networking
After hearing that the local public library did some reading programs with the kids of Flamingo Crescent, we decided to visit there to explore their interest in helping support the potential crèche. The librarians were very willing to help, immediately suggesting several things that could be done. It was immediately clear that these women could do quite a bit for Flamingo Crescent if they had the resources available to them.
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Scene 8: Communication and Enumeration
The inconsistencies in documentation began to slow the enumeration process down. Through various miscommunications and the lack of access to documents, the enumeration process hit a major roadblock when we couldn’t get access to the data necessary to make a savings map. Finally after coming up with one cohesive document, we worked with community leaders to create an accurate, updated enumeration document and made several copies for distribution.
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Reflection
Because leadership had already been established in Flamingo Crescent, we were able to speed up the mobilization process and developed strong working relationships with the community leaders, allowing our team to facilitate significant developments within the community.
Knowing the time limitation, we hit the ground running, condensing what had taken two weeks in 7de Laan into one enlightening name tag activity. We wasted no time meeting with the project manager the following day and touring two sites in different stages of reblocking with community leaders to gain insights for application in Flamingo Crescent.
With a strong sense of the work ahead of all of us, the community leaders and our project team paired up to begin preparing for the quickly approaching breaking ground plan. Our group broke up into four main committees, Crèche networking, parks and gardens, website, and CAD. Each committee took a lead role in facilitating the community’s preparation for reblocking.
The crèche networking team quickly realized that erecting a physical structure in the little time we had here would be impossible and rather focused their efforts in networking to create a foundation for the community to build from. The parks and gardens team began organizing various mobile park and garden elements that could bring tangible progress to the community and spark a sense of accomplishment whose momentum could carry on after we leave. The website team focused on documenting the efforts in Flamingo Crescent in order to successfully replicate and perfect as reblocking is still a new concept and Flamingo Crescent is a pioneering effort with unique challenges. And the CAD team, working closely with community leaders, helped to reorganize the structures in order to optimize accessibility and public open spaces.
In each team, the students settled into facilitation roles, allowing the community to take ownership of their project with greater drive and urgency.
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Moving Forward
Since moving to Flamingo Crescent, our team has been able to make significant progress mobilizing the community and finding our role as facilitators in the greater process. Moving forward, our focus will transition to more tangible works in each team. The crèche networking team hopes to identify solid funding and a construction plan in order to ensure the community can build a crèche once we’ve gone. The parks and gardens team plans to facilitate community building days for the construction of several park and gardens elements. The website team hopes to write several user friendly interactive documents to record the community’s process. And the CAD team hopes to finalize a layout with community leaders and seek community approval before submitting designs to the city. Although, our roles of facilitators will not change, in the final weeks we have high hopes to accomplish significant head way in Flamingo Crescent.