Coronation supports five schools in Langa

Coronation invests in mobile digital classroom to support learners in Langa

24 Jan 2022

 

Issued by: Coronation

 

This International Day of Education, Coronation CEO Anton Pillay highlighted the need to break down the barriers to a good education in South Africa.

 

Investing in Education: Coronation CEO Anton Pillay spends time on the Atlas DigiBus, a state-of-the-art bus equipped with digital teaching resources, which will support five schools in Langa township in 2022.Photo credit: Jay Caboz

As the world marks the International Day of Education on 24 January and as learners across the nation settle into the 2022 academic year, Coronation Fund Managers is announcing its support for the Atlas DigiBus mobile digital classroom initiative for five Langa schools in 2022.

“Notwithstanding the impact of Covid-19, the lack of access to crucial resources threatens the prospects of millions of our youth,” says Coronation CEO Anton Pillay. The resource deficit affects many learners in various forms, such as overcrowded classrooms and a lack of equipment, books, and technology.

“As a business that actively champions education in our nation and through our hands-on experience of supporting our disadvantaged communities, we are now collaborating on an innovative solution that enables us to bring quality education directly and safely to children in townships,” says Pillay.

In partnership with Atlas and Cognizant, who brought the idea to life, Pillay says: “Coronation is excited to now be the key funder for the operation and management of the Atlas DigiBus, a state-of-the-art, mobile digital classroom. It will deliver a world-class curriculum to thousands of learners across five schools in Langa.”

Driving change in education

The 42-seater Scania bus has been repurposed as a mobile classroom equipped with 40 laptops, two teaching stations and an online tracking system. It will offer children access to excellent academic support and peer-to-peer learning six days a week, leveraging off the expertise and materials of Bishops Diocesan College.

It will support the development of children at Mokone, Siyabulela, Moshesh, Thembani and Zimasa Primary schools with programmes that cover the most critical subjects facing these young learners. It will employ up to five new staff including a qualified teacher. To double up efforts, Coronation will also be providing two student teachers who will assist full time on the bus to ensure that each learner receives the attention and guidance that they need. “We foresee a valuable transfer of skills between the teachers, as well as mentorship and knowledge sharing,” commented Pillay.

Bridging digital and social divides

Celebrating International Day of Education with the theme “Changing Course, Transforming Education”, Unesco has called for greater digital education equality. According to the organisation, the day provides a platform to showcase the most important transformations that need to be nurtured in education and enables debate around how to strengthen education, steer the digital transformation, support teachers and unlock the potential in learners and students.

“With education being at the heart of the work we do to uplift our communities, we get to engage with many learners and students. It is because of them that we remain steadfastly committed to Coronation’s purpose of investing in our country and its people for the long-term,” says Pillay.

He explained that it’s why Coronation is excited about the immense potential of the Digibus as a holistic solution to the critical needs of our learners and teachers alike. “We will also be able to introduce parent information programmes, staff training, coding and high school revision programmes to name a few.”

“Delivering a quality education to every South African child is critical for the future of our country.” – Anton Pillay

“At Coronation, we believe that by investing in education, we are investing in our next generation of leaders and contributors to society. Along with our partners in the Atlas DigiBus, we aim to give learners the boost they need to reach their full potential and look forward to achieving tangible improvements in learner results,” he concluded. 

“The initiative is a potential gamechanger, which could assist in improving the level of education in South Africa and providing much-needed opportunities for the nation’s youth.”

Coronation supports a variety of education initiatives in disadvantaged communities around the country in partnership with various non-profit education organisations and other partners, and has done so for 20 years.

Langa township will become the pilot for a $1-million program to boost community-led tourism in Africa

Millennials’ search for experiences over luxury is driving Airbnb’s growth in Africa

 

 Photo By Business Events Africa

 

By Lynsey Chutel

Published October 19, 2017

In the last five years, more than 2 million people have found holiday accommodation in Africa through Airbnb which now has over 100,000 listings on the continent.African hosts earned $139 million in the last year, according to a new Airbnb study.

By opening up the homes of Africans to visitors, Airbnb has also opened up a previously untapped market. Travel in African is known to be expensive, and along with pricey flights, luxury hotels and five-star safari lodges used to be among the few choices tourists to the continent had. With Airbnb, tourists can live, eat and experience life as a local, appealing to the millennials driving the experience-over-stuff economy. What’s more, it’s opened up tourism not only to international visitors, but curious young Africans, too.

Airbnb claims African hosts have made an average of $1,500 a year. In Airbnb’s most popular city, Paris, hosts made an average of 1,970 euro (about $2,400) each year.

In South Africa, specifically, Airbnb has contributed $247 million to the country’s economy. Cape Town is the most popular among guests with 17,000 listings. Many of these homes are owned by Europeans as a holiday home or property investment, meaning the profits don’t necessarily stay in the country.

To counter this, Airbnb has launched a program that focuses on empowering hosts in the city’s townships—black-only neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city segregated during apartheid. Cape Town’s Langa township will become the pilot for a $1-million program to boost community-led tourism in Africa.

Still, Airbnb’s success is largely skewed toward African destinations that are already popular like Cape Town and Casablanca. It reflects how their tourism authorities have marketed them, says Diane Audrey Ngako, the founder of Visiter L’Afrique, a digital tourism and cultural platform for travel to Africa.

Ngako puts Airbnb’s success in Africa to its ability to sell an experience of Africa that international travelers see as authentic. Tourists know that much of the continent has a critical shortage of basic infrastructure, so they come looking for culture rather than comfort.

France is the single country with the highest number of Airbnb users looking to explore Africa, with 13% of guests identifying as French. Next is the US contributing 12% and the UK 10%. African travelers make up 29% of Airbnb guests, a quarter of whom are South African.

Tourists from South Africa may be looking for the same experience as international tourists or travelers from the African diaspora in the US and Europe. African tourists, however, want comfort.

African travelers want the perfect hotel, the perfect view and the perfect cocktail to go with it, says Ngako. Young Africans who are able to travel want a comfortable holiday that is also aspirational, which is why destinations like Cape Town appeal to them.

🌍 Quartz Africa Weekly

LANGA HOUSING

FNB lifts housing spend to R2bn

 

 

 

19 Jul 2006

 

First National Bank (FNB) on Tuesday increased its investment in housing to just under two billion rand this year, with the unveiling by government of Phase 2 of the N2 Gateway housing initiative in Cape Town.

FNB has partnered with government to deliver about 3,000 bonded houses in Joe Slovo settlement, part of Cape Town's Langa township. Today marked the official hand-over of part of the N2 Gateway's Phase 1 rental housing stock to beneficiaries.

The bank is committed to investing about 600 million rand towards the project, which will benefit people earning between 3,500 rand to 7,500 rand per month. House prices range from 150,000 rand to 250,000 rand per unit.

FNB's involvement in the N2 Gateway housing initiative brings the bank's total investment in housing to 1.7 billion rand this year. This translates to 7,049 housing units.

The bank recently launched an 800 million rand commercial property and housing finance deal to build in excess of 3,000 homes in Glen Ridge, Soweto, last month.

In May this year, FNB invested 368 million rand to build in excess of 1,000 houses at Cosmo City near Kya Sands north of Johannesburg. Of these, 702 were built in partnership with 702 Talk Radio. – I-Net Bridge

Have a comment or question about this article? Tell us about it..

Langa Junction

R60m shopping centre to be built at Langa station

 

Photo By GroundUp

Published Jul 24, 2014

Roy Cokayne

Langa, one of the busiest train stations in Cape Town, is to get a new R60 million shopping centre that aims to cater for about 45 000 commuters who use the station daily.

The new 5 000m2 project is being developed by Nu-Way Housing Developments and sister company Krisp Properties. Ground was broken earlier this month on the site for the new centre, which is scheduled to open in February.

About 100 jobs will be created during the construction phase and 200 permanent jobs will be created once the centre opens.

It will be the newest commuter-based retail development in the country and forms part of the extensive recent urban upgrade of the Langa station and its surrounds by the City of Cape Town.

Architect Boets Smuts of Smuts & De Kock Architects said the development of the centre and the upgrading of the area by the city went hand-in-hand. “It will be the first convenience shopping centre for Langa. There is a need for centres like this so people don’t need to take a train to town to do their shopping. Convenience centres are rising in townships all over South Africa,” he said.

One of the country’s leading food retailers has been secured as the anchor tenant of the centre, which will have 11 other stores, two ATMs and eight smaller spaces of about 15m2, specifically aimed at entrepreneurs and small, medium and micro enterprises.

Jordan Mann, an executive director of Krisp Properties and Nu-Way Housing, said the newly built overhead commuter bridge linking Langa Junction with the station and the Epping industrial area meant a high volume of foot traffic for the centre.

Mann said the plan was for the centre to be a hub for public transport commuters.

“The railway has been upgraded into a modern transit station, which serves commuters very well.

“We are creating a shopping experience for commuters and residents in the area. We are also addressing a major need for retail in the area. The community and retailers have been very keen for us to get this centre up and running,” he said.

The developer’s presence in the area spans back to the early 2000s when Nu-Way developed 300 housing stands in the community.

Mann said the town planning for the shopping centre was completed at the time and it was always their intention to put a shopping centre in Langa.

It had also earmarked adjacent land for the future growth of the shopping centre, he said.

 

 

 

LANGA BIZ

FUTURE CAPE TOWN | Thinking about the future of Langa train station

Catherine Luyt on 21/10/2015

“the private and public investment in the Langa Station precinct denotes an appetite for broad, inclusive development within the community”

 

---

 

 

 

During a drive through Langa on a weekend afternoon, one notices the bustling centre of the community; the taxi rank surrounded by informal traders, butchers, car-washers and other services. Driving about 1 km further along Washington Street the newly upgraded Langa Station and Langa Junction emerges. Both of these transit nodes have the potential to become the central hub of the community, one a social hub while the other a transit hub. One idea may be to consider incorporating the taxi rank in the future development of Langa Station in order to create better coordination between these two major transport nodes of Langa and surrounds. 

Langa, situated some 12 km outside of Cape Town city centre, was established in 1927 as an area designated for Black South Africans to reside in accordance with the 1923 Urban Areas Act. Langa is the oldest of such areas and it was the ground of much resistance to apartheid. Currently Langa is a vibrant community made of 52 000 residents, where the majority is still black South Africans. While much has improved in the neighbourhood, Langa still experiences periods of violence in protest against government service delivery, specifically that of housing and the general living conditions.

A great number of spatial opportunities exist within and around Langa, which is strategically located adjacent to the closed-down Athlone Power Station now identified as a “future high order mixed-use precinct” according to the City of Cape Town. There have been many plans for the immediate future such as high density housing, additional rental accommodation and hostels, public space upgrades and a non-motorised transport route linking Langa to surrounding major roads.

The Langa train station forms part of the Central Line rail service operated by Metrorail Western Cape and is one of the busiest as the Central Line services operate along two routes from Central Cape Town to Langa, and then branching from Langa to various areas in the south-east of the city such as Mitchell’s Plain, Khayelitsha and Belhar. The station is situated on the outskirts of the residential area of Langa and South of Epping industrial area. A future road is being planned just North of the Langa train station which will house the extension of the MyCiti Bus Rapid Transport system and further mixed use development in the area.

In March 2015 the Langa Junction shopping mall opened its doors to Langa residents and the 45 000 daily commuters who use the adjacent Langa station which is conveniently linked to Epping industrial area via an overhead commuter footbridge. Langa Junction is the first convenience shopping centre for Langa and Krsip Properties hope that the centre will become a hub for public transport commuters as Langa Junction complements the upgraded modern Langa Station.

About transit oriented development

Car dependency is an increasing pattern in South African cities and the spatial patterns of the Cape Town region that emerged during the apartheid era continue to exist in the accommodation of low density communities on the fringes of the city who are dependent on public transport.

The concept of Transport Oriented Development (TOD) offers a means to the restructuring of Cape Town’s socio-spatial patterns. This has been absorbed into plans and policies within the province and the country as the 2011 National Development Plan calls for “the internationally accepted principles” of TOD to be employed. The notion behind supporting TOD in Cape Town is to create a more viable and efficient transport system where passengers can live and work in close proximity to trunk routes and therefore lead to increased density along these routes with the correct mix of residential and commercial.

The City of Cape Town is “committed to building an inclusive city where the future of our residents is not defined by where they live, but rather where everyone has the opportunity to unlock and cultivate their full potential” explains Councillor Brett Herron, the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member, in the division of Transport for Cape Town. Transit-oriented development has been emphasises in Cape Town “to ensure that we bring our residents closer to their workplace and that we improve the access to and efficiency of public transport across the city”.

Between formal and informal

Along with the development of the Langa Junction mall, the local government of Cape Town, has requested that an Informal Trading Plan be developed for the Langa station southern area from the station extending to Washington Street. The hopes are to provide a well-managed environment for informal traders to operate and develop their businesses in a manner that ensures a positive relationship with the formal trading sector and the surrounding community. Langa has a vibrant sector of informal trading and the City’s plan to integrate the informal traders into new development within Langa will hopefully further support these traders and protect their business against emerging supermarkets within the area, which serve a different role to the informal trader.

(Read the plan here)

Councillor Sicelo Mxolose explains how this inclusion of informal trading “came at a good time when the community was in dire need for such development. It unlocked the economic potential of our area and has provided some opportunities for small informal business people to own or lease formal structures to conduct their trading”. Councillor Mxolose views the development around Langa Junction in a positive light as it “provided a number of job opportunities for our youth” and will continue to provided further business and trading opportunities to aspiring young entrepreneurs in the community.

What this precinct could become?

Upon first visiting Langa it may seem as though the development of Langa Junction, whose aim is to create a transport and shopping hub within Langa, has not taken into consideration the already entrenched hub of activity which exists around the taxi rank of Langa, 1km away from the train station.

Councillor Johan van der Merwe, a Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Environmental and Spatial Planning for the City of Cape Town, does not “foresee that the two potential hubs could create tension within the community. Each transit stop creates its own economic opportunities and the nature of the formal activity is determined to some extent by the land ownership and available land in the vicinity. The extent of Langa means that it benefits from having two transport interchanges and good accessibility to two different modes”.

Councillor van der Merwe explains how Langa Junction spawned “out of the private sector recognising a transit-oriented retail opportunity, made possible by land owned by a state-owned entity being available for development”. The development, therefore, is not a representation of a bigger plan for Langa but is rather supporting the City’s Transit-Oriented Development agenda and the overdue need to invest in historically disadvantaged areas in and around Cape Town.

The future development of Langa is a bright one as Councillor van der Merwe states that “the City believes that the private and public investment in the Langa Station precinct is positive, and denotes an appetite for broad, inclusive development within the community”.

Read more

• Langa station’s 100 metre bridge
• The day that Langa opened her streets
• Cape Town’s newest theatre rising in Langa
• A bold vision for Langa

 

2023 Netball World Cup STUFF IN LANGA

Mural unveiled in Langa to mark 1 year countdown until Netball World Cup in CPT

Sara-Jayne Makwala King|

5 months ago

The countdown is officially on for the 2023 Netball World Cup being hosted in the Mother City next year.

Cape Town was announced as the host city in July 2019. It's the first time ever the tournament will be held on African soil.

The City will be rolling out several netball activities leading up to the Netball World Cup to raise awareness about the event.

We are very proud to host this competition and hopefully see the South African national netball team become world champions on home soil.

Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor - City of Cape Town

This week, officials including Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and representatives of the Netball World Cup LOC and Netball South Africa attended the unveiling of the first in a series of legacy murals for the tournament.

The 33 metres by 9 metres mural at the Langa Indoor Sports Centre was painted by local artist Skumbuzo Salman who was supported by emerging artist Ayabonga Ntshongwana.

It follows the theme of "Netball", "Women Sport" "Cape Town", "Africa", "healthy lifestyle", "women empowerment" and "hope".

RELATED: '2023 Netball World Cup will make the sport fashionable and change narratives'

Meanwhile, over R6 million has been spent sprucing up netball facilities in Scottsdene, Ravensmead, Delft, Gugulethu, Sir Lowry's Pass, Strandfontein, Sarepta and Mitchells Plain.

LANGA RAILWAY BUSINESS

City completes R10,5 million upgrade of Langa Station South public space

Future Cape Townon09/05/2016/Comments closed

In March 2016, the City of Cape Town completed an upgrade of the Langa Station South public open at a cost of more than R10.5 million. The project entailed:

• construction of new sidewalks and the improvement of existing sidewalks for safe pedestrian movement,
• Sandile Road, which leads towards the Langa Station, has also been changed from a two-way to a one-way road to enhance pedestrian safety and the movement of buses, taxis and private vehicles,
• the existing informal trading spaces have also been upgraded to improve the business environment for the informal traders,
• a wall of art has been created by local artists to acknowledge the history of Langa and to celebrate its future,
• new public seating and lighting have been installed and a new asphalted public parking area adjacent to Brinton Street has been constructed

Text and image credits: The City of Cape Town