Khulisa Social Solutions - Cape Town 2016 corporate social initiative
ABOUT THIS YEAR’S CSI DRIVE
The chosen beneficiary for the Cape CSI 2016 project, is Khulisa Social Solutions – and specifically their Streetscapes Project as the main focus of our project. Together with Khulisa, we will launch The Renewal Project. All the initiatives and activities that form part of this project, will culminate in one dedicated CSI Day on Sunday, 23 October 2016.
Khulisa Social Solutions
Khulisa has been working with rehabilitation, behaviour change and community development for 19 years. They work systemically to tackle the causal factors of community vulnerability. Khulisa does not work believe in “charity” – they aim to provide people with different life choice options, but believe it is still the individual who needs to make the choice to change their life for the better. From there, the “social solutions” component of their name.
Established in 1997, Khulisa operates countrywide through 33 regional offices, employs over 400 staff and currently has active projects in over 400 communities. Khulisa is a registered NPO.
In Cape Town, Khulisa provides diversion services at the Community Court in the city centre and receives up to 150 homeless clients monthly – arrested after they committed non-serious crimes and by-law offences such as sleeping on the streets, urinating in a public space, etc. Residents and city businesses often call police and law enforcement due to frustration with the homeless on or near their property. Law enforcement, however, has not been able to solve the root causes – leading to Khulisa projects such as Streetscapes.
Streetscapes
Homeless people are a growing challenge of urban societies and a problem that will increase if no imaginative interventions are made.
One such intervention, is the Streetscapes initiative. Within this initiative:
- Inner city vegetable gardens are established and produce locally organic, affordable food for residential and commercial buyers (such as restaurants in the city). These gardens are worked and tended to by the previously-homeless who then benefit from the proceeds.
- Five “hotspot” areas in Lower Gardens are cleaned, free of charge, by previously-homeless people. This assists in recycling and people who were previously viewed as a nuisance now provide a service to the communities in these areas. These previously unemployed people also benefit financially from the service that they provide to the city.
- The Canterbury Street Bakery provides “dignity” lunch sandwiches to the Cape Argus offices.
- Two more big projects are in the planning phase for 2017: Soap making, and the Kavuki Recycling Station, Organic Waste Composting Site and Inner City Garden.
Streetscapes create work opportunities for the chronically homeless. It is a “hand-up”, not a “hand-out”. Work provides income, dignity and a chance to be useful.
Streetscapes demonstrate that homeless people can be highly motivated to work and to rebuild their lives. After 6 months, earning R2 400 per month, 77% of the beneficiaries had moved off the streets and 68% addresses substance abuse problems positively.
The immediate benefits of the Streetscapes project include:
- A cleaner, safer city.
- Locally produced, healthy food for the city.
- Those who were previously a problem, become an asset.
ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES
We will be focusing on five main projects on the 22nd and 23rd of October:
1. Establishing the vegetable garden
A large piece of land, called Stroompies, adjacent to the Trafalgar School (one of the oldest schools in the country) has become available to the Streetscapes project to establish an inner city vegetable garden. This piece of land is directly adjacent to De Waal Drive (can be seen from De Waal Drive) and falls within District Six (which is being included in more and more tours of Cape Town due to the history surrounding the area).
The land is also adjacent to a public open space which will be transformed into a safe public sports field and play park as part of the process to build the community and “clean up” the area.
The vision for Stroompies is to provide organic vegetables for sale to residents and businesses. These transactions between buyer and seller, also have as aim to heal the relationships within the community.
This garden will be prepared before 23 October and will be planted on 23 October.
2. Constructing the bottle cap mosaic
In order to achieve visibility for the garden and project, a big mosaic, made out of recycled bottle caps is planned and The Renewal Institute will take the ultimate responsibility for this. The plan is to erect it in such a way that it can be seen from De Waal drive. This type of mosaic has become a world-wide phenomenon with many fantastic examples that are available.
This mosaic will not merely be an artwork to attract attention – the message of this mosaic is that something that could be considered to be waste, with no value and that is only deemed worthy of being thrown away, can be transformed into something beautiful, with a purpose.
The preparation for the mosaic will be done before 23 October and will be constructed on 23 October.
3. Selling food to participants / guests
On the 23rd of October, it is planned to sell specific food items to participants and any visitors to the project.
The proceeds of these sales will go towards either The Renewal Project or, if all the immediate costs were covered by other means, to the Bakery Project in the form of a payment to their suppliers of ingredients.
4. Hosting the People’s Market
Community involvement would be the key to the sustainability of the project. To get the community involved, and to combine this with additional fundraising initiatives, a community market (aptly named The People’s Market) will kick off as a new community tradition on the 22nd of October with the aim of having 60 stalls on the Trafalgar School premises.
This event will be launched as part of The Renewal Project, and will then be hosted monthly in the warmer seasons.
5. The Trafalgar Renewal Run
As part of the launch of the market and the garden, a fun walk / run (5km and 10km) will be held on 22 October – the aim is to attract at least 100 participants and the have the Trafalgar Renewal Run become an annual event in October each year.
6. Providing visibility for the project
We would like to aim to create visibility for the project on the day in the following forms:
- Collaborate with a radio station to broadcast from the site on the day.
- Collaborate with print media to provide coverage of the day.
- Social media campaigns.
- Invite the mayor and/or ward members to visit on the day.
- Get the school and informal community leaders involved.
HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED ON AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
You can engage with The Renewal Project in any of the following ways:
1. Make your services and labour available on the day.
2. Recycle, collect and donate plastic cooldrink bottle caps by dropping it off at any Renewal Institute branch (any region).
3. Buy a Pamper with a Purpose Massage Voucher for R100 at any Renewal Institute Cape branch.
4. Donate your small change in any Renewal Institute Cape branch.
5. Buy a plant-in-jar from any Renewal Institute Cape branch for R30.
6. Support the People’s Market on 22 October.
7. Take part in The Trafalgar Renewal Run.
For more information on any of the above any Western Cape branch of the Renewal Institute.