Source: The Weekender Homeless people who have not been accommodated in Cape Town’s N2 Gateway housing project party while their children fear eviction, writes JEANNE HROMNIKNote: The Anti-Eviction Campaign and Jeanne Hromnik are extremly upset at the headline which was introduced unilaterally by the editor. It implies that the community parties while ignoring their children. This is a disgusting insult and the editor should apologize for implying that the community neglects its children. In reality, the community of Symphony Way have set up a children’s committee to run the community creche, a netball and soccer team, and always makes sure the children get fed first (before the adults) and go to school.
AT SYMPHONY Way in Delft, squatters have built shacks on either side of the road alongside the N2 Gateway Project houses they occupied illegally and were evicted from in February last year. Now they are fighting the prospect of eviction from their shacks.
They say if that happens they will set up camp elsewhere and wait for another eviction.
They have already survived the torrential rain of the past winter.
They have vowed never to move to the temporary relocation areas that the government built outside Delft, about 40km from Cape Town. The temporary relocation areas are grim and hazardous places and already accommodate thousands of people with little hope of moving out.
Symphony Way — the newly constructed extension between the N2 highway and the Stellenbosch arterial route — had its grand opening last year, a few months before the pavement dwellers were brutally evicted and left without shelter. Their unwelcome presence on the road forced the city to block off the section of Symphony Way between Silversands and Hindle Road.
Recently 12 of us — an odd group of friends, united by a common interest in getting to know each other — came to Symphony Way for a party.
It’s the South African way of dealing with problems. Toyi- toyiing and singing. Read the rest of this entry »
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