KWALANGA RISING

IKhaya Le Langa: Creating jobs and opportunities for young men in South Africa

By: Megan Gieske 19 March 2021 Culture

 

Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Tony Elvin, IKhaya Le Langa’s founder, sits inside the retro 1950’s style eatery, “The Sun Diner,” after Langa, which means “the sun.” It’s flanked by two repurposed shipping containers, one a bright cobalt blue. He’s nurturing a puppy that arrived at IKhaya Le Langa’s gates the day before. It’s not hard to tell that IKhaya Le Langa, in part, means “home.”

That’s what Elvin wants the IKhaya Le Langa ambassadors to feel here — at home, to experience the feeling of being held and believed in by themselves and others, and that their dreams matter.

“[All of] that started with my mum going, ‘You’re amazing. You’re loved, and you can be anything you want,’” Elvin said. “That’s what this place is.”

IKhaya Le Langa, a not-for-profit company, is a place for the young men of Langa to find mentorship, incubation for their ideas, and begin healing trauma with an on-site clinical social worker. “I can’t heal their trauma and I can’t cure the environments they come from,” Elvin said. “But the time they’re here and that they arrive, there’s hope, there’s food, and there’s companionship.”

Little room for opportunity in Langa

British-born Elvin first visited South Africa in 2004 and moved to Langa 10 years ago. In Langa, he was struck by the number of talented young men with dreams unfulfilled, standing at street corners and idling at taxi ranks. “The ability to sing, dance, make this, create that, is insanely high [in Langa],” Elvin said. “[So] what’s going on in the township?”

The unemployment rate for young people in the country is a staggering 59%, and according to the ONE Africa COVID-19 Tracker, 18.7% of the population lives in extreme poverty. The last census recorded only 40.1% of Langa residents had completed high school.

Struck by what he saw and what creativity he knows is coursing through Langa, Elvin asks, “Why [isn’t] this amazing place able to sustain and create hundreds of thousands of jobs as it should do [being] in the middle of the geographic center of one of the richest cities on the African continent?”

Elvin explains that the older men of Langa are still waiting for their time to come. There’s an unspoken agreement that young men like Asekho and Sifiso, ambassadors at IKhaya Le Langa, must stand at the back of the line and wait their turn for opportunity and growth.

“The dysfunction of Langa provides these guys with very little opportunity, and this is one of the outcomes,” Elvin said.

Elvin cites other issues like elite capture, institutional and systemic racism, lack of positive male role models, gang culture, drug influences, and generational trauma and abuse that impact the number of opportunities available to young men in Langa. “Elite capture happens in all communities, all societies, but in poorer communities, the effects of elite capture are really quite pronounced. Elite capture is where resources for a community are snaffled by the top layer,” Elvin explained.

The first social enterprise precinct

“It is the memory of the little black boy in me that gets it. I see them,” Elvin said, “That feeling of being so inconsequential—I had that feeling my whole life,” Elvin said. “Here we are in South Africa where you had legislated racism. It’s important that they understand that blackness is a good thing. They’ve been told for a long time in this country, in particular, that it’s not.”

“They call it ‘swart gevaar,’ black fear, it was political brainwashing under the apartheid era, and it sticks that if you see blackness, you see fear or less than. So for us, it’s a deliberate strategy by saying ‘This is a sustainable black space.’” Elvin started calling the area “Langa Quarter” to detach the stigma of the word “township.” “We’ve created the first social enterprise precinct in South Africa, [Langa Quarter],” Elvin said, where the idea is to overlay the social enterprise principles of “people, planet, and profit” onto whole neighborhoods, and create some form of social enterprise in each of Langa Quarter’s 500 homes. “The Langa Quarter is a prototype ‘Social Enterprise Precinct’ (SEP) a community development model in which ‘people, planet, profit principles are integrated throughout our activities and decision-making processes,” Elvin explained.

“There is an extraordinary amount of talent here,” Elvin said. “But what happens when that promise is not fulfilled? You turn in on yourself. ”

Inside IKhaya Le Langa

IKhaya Le Langa seems more than just a wall away from the restless energy outside. From when you enter the gate, ambassadors’ smiles are wide, bright, and hopeful. They move about IKhaya Le Langa with calmness and determination, purpose and drive, bridled, focused energy.

One of the ambassadors, 18-year-old Sifiso, said his three years as an ambassador changed him; he now wants to be a tour guide. “One thing we did through this pandemic was the lockdown lunches for homeless people who live around the community,” Sifiso said. “It was amazing.” Through IKhaya Le Langa’s “Lockdown Lunch Club,” the organization was able to feed 50 people a day.

Sifiso and the other young men at IKhaya Le Langa are encouraged to come up with their own business ideas and use the space to make their dreams happen. One is an artist, and another produces music, but they all learn life skills and disciplines around communication, behavior, timekeeping, and a general understanding of themselves, space, others, and relationships. “The way our process works [is focusing on] volunteering, personal development, and economic activity,” Elvin said.

It’s a model Elvin hopes will be replicated in South Africa’s 73 townships and around the world. His plan is to open InSTED, the Institute for Sustainable Township Enterprise Development, to teach what he’s learned during his 10 years in Langa.

“We’re the first township in South Africa. We’re going to be 100 years old soon,” Elvin said. “The other 73 townships [make up]11.6 million people, [that’s] a quarter of the population of the country. I like the fact that there’s going to be lots of youngsters like these guys seeing what we’re doing here and see the community driving change.”

A lasting impact

“That’s what I like about this place, giving opportunities to young people who want a better life and to have an impact on their communities,” former ambassador Asekho said. Now 28 years old, Asekho first joined IKhaya Le Langa five years ago as an ambassador and now is the resident barista.

Asekho’s dream is to use ingredients and traditions local to South Africa in his work as a barista. In the back garden next to the café, he points out impepho, a traditional herb with detoxing powers. “It’s inspired by my friends, the community, and where I come from [in the Eastern Cape],” Asekho says, as he walks between vegetable boxes, gleaming in the slanting light of the afternoon sun.

Elvin’s dream is to host isiXhosa classes, markets, events, and a First Thursdays Langa with free art shuttles to and from the central galleries of Cape Town. IKhaya Le Langa also started welcoming African refugees from Global Education Movement as interns.

“We’re creating lots of activity now for this new normal,” Elvin said, shifting from international tourism to domestic, and staying “clean, green, and safe.”

Creating opportunities

“We’re creating jobs in Langa and keeping the value low to the ground,” Elvin said. Recently, they opened and partnered with iClass Media Langa, a video production company, SAKOIA, an online store for quality African goods, and Eclectic IKasi, their shop selling burlap coffee sack totes, vegetables grown in community gardens, and art by their in-house artist, Tozamile Mnapu. “We’re creating reasons for Capetonians to keep coming [back to IKhaya Le Langa and Langa],” Elvin said.

When asked what the impact of being at IKhaya Le Langa has been on him, Asekho said, “Personal development and being an entrepreneur — it’s one of my biggest achievements in life. Without any doubt. Everything I’ve learned and achieved is from IKhaya Le Langa.”

Ndabeni-Langa Land Claim

Families forcibly removed from Maitland 80 years ago still can’t use their land

Ndabeni Communal Property Trust concluded a settlement agreement for the 54.8-hectares

18 August 2022 | By Tariro Washinyira News | Cape Town

The Ndabeni Communal Property Trust wants the City of Cape Town and national government to help them remove families occupying their land. Photos: Tariro Washinyira

• Members of the Ndabeni Communal Property Trust are pleading with the City of Cape Town and national government to remove families occupying their land in Maitland.
• Claimants represented by the Trust got the land through the Land Claims Commission in 1997 after being forcefully removed between 1927 and 1936 and relocated to Langa.
• Now hundreds of people are living in shacks on the land and demanding sanitation and electricity.

Members of the Ndabeni Communal Property Trust are pleading with the City of Cape Town and national government to relocate families occupying their land in Maitland.

The Trust has owned the land since 2004, after a successful claim through the Land Claims Commission in terms of the Restitution Act of 1997. But the beneficiaries say they have never reaped the benefits.

The story is told in papers in the Western Cape High Court lodged in terms of a process to identify beneficiaries in 2018. The Ndabeni community were forcefully removed between 1927 and 1936 from erf 24176 Maitland and relocated to Langa. In 1942 the 54.8 hectares of land opposite Maitland Cemetery was transferred to the Council, which subdivided the land and sold various portions.

At the time that the land claim was lodged, there were 587 claimants. After verification by the Commission and the Land Claims Court, they were grouped into 249 households.

The court papers stated that on 13 October 2001, after an extensive process, the Ndabeni Community’s claim was settled and the Trust was established to serve the interests of the claimants.

But more than two decades later, families dispossessed of their land or their descendants are yet to “reap any benefits” and the “promise of land restitution and attendant benefits” appears to be hollow, they said in the court papers.

Women living on the land owned by the Ndabeni Communal Property Trust opposite the Maitland Cemetery in Cape Town started a food garden but it was destroyed by law enforcement officers, they said.

Harold Vumile Nakani, a trustee of the Trust, told GroundUp that they had title deeds for the land, but could not do anything with it, partly because of the shack dwellers on the land.

“The City of Cape Town and the government should take responsibility to relocate those people,” he said.

Nakani said the piece of land is zoned for business use, not residential.

In 2019, GroundUp reported on about 50 families living in shacks on part of the land, which they call Olympic Park. Some claim to have been living there for 20 years.

Last week, we visited the site again and discovered a new group of about 40 households also living on the land, near Gate 7 of the cemetery.

Ndabeni Nomaphelo is raising three children, one of whom is autistic, in the one-room shack she shares with two other relatives. She said the City’s Law Enforcement officers conduct regular raids and demolitions.

Ndabeni Nomaphelo (right) and her family share this one room shack. She says people choose to stay there because the settlement is near busy business districts like Parow, Bellville and even the city centre where they can look for work.

Nomaphelo said she moved to the settlement from Khayelitsha eight years ago when her husband lost his job and they could no longer afford rent.

“Life here is very difficult. The room is packed and we are crammed against the walls. There is no space for children to study. When you want a toilet you must go to the bush and when you want water, you must look everywhere,” said Nomaphelo, adding that they have not been able to get the City’s help because the land is privately owned.

Nomeni Rhewe, 65, said she and her unemployed husband have been living in the settlement for 15 years. She doesn’t have an ID and cannot get a pension. “I was born and raised in 6th Avenue Kensington in a shack. When I’m hungry I search for food in bins. It’s hard staying without toilets and fetching water very far away,” she said.

A few shacks from Rhewe lives a widowed mother and her young children. The children attend school in Langa but they often stay home when their mother, Nonsikelelo Bengu, can’t pay for their transport.

Bengu, who is 53 and unemployed, moved to the settlement from Khayelitsha in 2017 when she could no longer pay rent.

Nomeni Rhewe has lived with her unemployed husband in the settlement for 15 years. She says she grew up in the Kensington area but can’t afford to live anywhere else.

“I have too much stress. I use the bucket with water for a toilet and throw it in the bush. When I get food I use fire to cook. I have been on the housing waiting list since 1997. Every time when I go to check my name they tell me to wait,” said Bhengu.

Ward Councillor Helen Jacobs acknowledged the land belongs to the Ndabeni Trust but said the trust had not finalised what they want to do with the land.

She said she only became aware of the settlement in 2015-16 when shacks burnt down.“The City does not provide services unless the owner gives permission. Currently, we are providing containers for refuse collection and people from the settlement do cleaning through the Expanded Public Works Programme.”

Jacobs said the Ndabeni Trust had been unwilling to give approval for the provision of services. The Olympic Park group has water because it was there before the land was given over to the Trust.

 GROUNDUP

EK SE - OLA

October 2, 2020 AseLihle Media

The elegance of God’s will comfort the former epicenter of covid-19 on Heritage Day.

While millions across South Africa gathered to celebrate and remind the world of their traditions and diversity wearing their colorful traditional clothing 50 congregants met in Phandulwazi, Langa Township to uneasy their suffering and glorify the lord for survival.

Evangelist Nozie Ntakumba praising during the revival worship of the God’s Grace Ministry in Phandulwazi, Langa Township in Cape Town. Photo: Asavela Peko/As’eLihle Media

Asavela Peko I October 1, 2020

Western Cape – Captivated into the high spirited, cheerful, and revival worshipping sermon of the God’s Grace Ministry during the aftermath of coronavirus that taunted hearts, spirits and lives are Capetonians who came in numbers to relieve themselves and praise the lord on a heritage day (September 24, 2020).

The sixth administration’s instrumental decision to move South Africa to Level 1 of the lockdown as of midnight on September 20, 2020 gave the much-anticipated confirmation to the ministry as it had over a month of planning the revival.

“We have been planning this revival for over a month, and when the president announced we knew that God’s plan could not be shuttered down but affirmed by the president’s address,” said 23-year-old Evangelist Nozie Ntakumba who spearheaded the sermon.

Ntakumba who is no stranger to Cape Town congregants since the inception of the God’s Grace Ministry in 2015 seemed delighted to be back and only this time covid-19 had left more graves than progress which have caused uncontrollable uncertainties and shaken faith for others.

50 congregants across the province who attended the revival where blown away by the deliverance by Ntakumba who received a standing ovation and was lauded by Amanda “Happy Girl” Raraza who is a presenter at Zibonele FM hosting a faith show named Ebukhoneni that hosted her few weeks before the deliverance in their studios in Khayelitsha.

“Sis Nozie is a vessel assigned by God to the hopeless, and to give them a breakthrough. She is a genuine prophetess and she is the kind of guests I admire and like hosting in my show,” confidently said Amanda.

She added,” Her deliverance surpassed the expectations proving that God had found the rightful messenger and his spirit led her.”

A congregant, 41-year-old Nolukhanyo Tshaka could not had enough of the revival saying that it is as if the Eastern Cape based house of the lord knew exactly what they needed after a huge blow by the coronavirus that shuttered the country into its knees.

“God has elevated the service and graced us with her daughter, Evangelist Ntakumba who could not come at a better time when we have been hit by the covid-19 changed our normal living arrangements.”

Ntakumba took to the social networks to express her gratitude to the congregants who part-taken on the revival and assured them that her church is to continue with its revivals and visits to the province as usual.

“We are grateful, and delighted by the support we received, and more importantly the elevation by the lord to deliver his word,” concluded Ntakumba.

God’s Grace Ministry says it will be hosting more sermons within the Western Cape over the upcoming years and wish to open branches in other parts of the country, however, all in due course when God gives them the strength to pursue that phase.

 

ONE 4 LANGA

 

Long-divided communities are uniting under Cape Town Together to help those in-need

By: Megan Gieske 10 November 2020 COVID-19

Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Under Cape Town Together, communities long-divided over racial lines are uniting to help those in-need.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing financial crisis in South Africa, Mzikhona Mgedle lost his job in the non-profit sector, but he wasn’t backing down. He started the Langa CAN, “community action network,” to meet the specific needs of his community, and he wasn’t alone.

Mzikhona Mgedle is part of a growing movement to meet community needs through self-organization, “for people by the people.” Using the power of social media in a new way, neighborhood-level CANs (“community action networks”) like the Langa CAN, unite the country during a global crisis.

“We move fast with the speed of trust, where we collaborate among ourselves,” Mzikhona said, “We work with anyone who’s willing to be part of the network.”

Responding to the pandemic

CANs like Mzikhona’s began as a rapid, community-led response to COVID-19. In just five months, 170 CANs spread across the city, and the Facebook group for their umbrella network, Cape Town Together, grew to over 18,000 members from its start on March 17th.

In a famously divided country, the millions of South Africans living in densely populated townships that are part of the legacy of apartheid or “apartness,” were disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

At the edge of the city, Langa’s tidy, tin-roofed houses lay behind a high fence on the busy road that leads to the Cape Town International Airport. Laundry drapes over sheds covered with tin, plastic sheeting, and scrap wood, or flags in the wind outside crowded, brick apartment buildings. Stretching across 3.09 km2 (1.19 mi2) of flatland, 80,000 people often share one-bedroom homes with multiple families and communal taps with hundreds of neighbors. Commands to “social distance” and “wash hands with soap and water” come with greater difficulty here.

This is the community Mzikhona Mgedle comes from.

Langa CAN began with the distribution of food parcels from Mzikhona’s own home. “Our kitchens have been active ever since three days before the lockdown (beginning on March 27th). Since I initiated the project, now it has established six community kitchens,” Mzikhona said. “Each month, we can feed 9,000 people.”

Helping the community

Twenty-five women volunteer to cook in the community kitchens. Most of the women volunteering lost their jobs due to the lockdown, and yet, they’re feeding 9,000 people a month.

“Instead of staying at home doing nothing, we like to come here and help, and cook for other people, so at least we are doing something good to benefit others,” Nosipho said. Nosipho cooks in a repurposed shipping container with three other women.

“Every day, the number of people queuing goes up, including the kids and the elderly,” Lulu said. She started a community kitchen in her own home with members of her family and her neighborhood.

The women make sure social distancing is practiced, everyone wears their masks, and sanitizes their hands. “You have to have a passion [for] doing this, otherwise you’ll get tired,” Lulu said. Her passion is clear, as is what can happen when women unite to defend their community.

“Most people who are testing positive are breadwinners, people who are providing income to the family,” Mzikohna said, “When they’re in self-quarantine for 14 days in government facilities, kids will starve or won’t get medical care.”

Throughout the pandemic, school feeding schemes closed, leaving children without their one meal a day.

An estimated 3 million people in South Africa lost their jobs between February and April, and recent research shows that the percentage of people who have run out of money for food in the last year has increased from 25% to 47%.

With bicycles donated by Heroes on Bikes, Langa CAN delivers cooked food to the bedridden, elderly or disabled, and people in isolation or those who have COVID-19.

Together with education packs for students, Langa CAN delivers food parcels anonymously to COVID-positive families with the help of a local clinic.

They also equip women from the community with materials and sewing machines to make masks for the elderly and others at high-risk. Doctors and health practitioners design flyers to teach best health practices for COVID-19, and by partnering with other CANs, they provide study materials to schools. They also plan to begin a community garden to grow vegetables for the kitchens.

“We all try to build back better for solidarity, where we gather and discuss what it is we want to achieve,” Mzikhona said.

CANS connecting communities

Although Langa and Claremont are just a 15 minute drive from each other, they’ve historically been separated. Under apartheid, Langa was declared one of the first black-only townships, and Claremont represents one of the predominately white, leafy suburbs flanking the slopes of Table Mountain. Through the use of social media, and apps like Whatsapp and Telegram, the Langa and Claremont CANs could partner, bridging the gaps of some of South Africa’s longest divides. The Claremont CAN fundraises for donations for the community kitchens in Langa.

For Mzikhona, social solidarity spreads faster than COVID-19. “This is a new way of building back better,” Mzikhona said that by developing and building relationships, “We can make sure we fight the divide in Cape Town of racism.”

It’s a beautiful testament to what a long-divided country like South Africa can achieve, when communities unite together under one cause, to fight COVID-19 and its effects of food insecurity and unemployment.

REACH FOR A DREAM

Party dream comes true for little Sibongile

Published Jul 1, 2001

 

Written by

Jo-anne Smetherham

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Sibongile wore a white satin dress with glittering sleeves and a diamante tiara. She was seated on the stage of the hall with her aunt, Thembisa Mhlongo, who looks after her.

Hundreds of people poured into the hall beneath her to celebrate her birthday party.

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But the five-year-old was exhausted, so she dozed through most of the proceedings.

Sibongile is battling with full-blown Aids.

She only awoke hours into the party when guests sang "Happy Birthday". She looked dazed as she surveyed the crowd, but when her aunt held her upright to pose for photographers, she broke into a grin.

When the third present was handed to her she refused to give it to her grandfather. Instead, she waved it playfully just out of his reach.

When she turned five last Tuesday, Sibongile Princess Mazeka wished for a birthday party. Sponsorships poured in after an article in the Cape Times last week about Sibongile's wish.

This might be her last birthday, as her condition is deteriorating. She has twice been admitted to hospital with pneumonia in the past month, and now has a brain tumour that causes her to have epileptic fits.

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Wimpy sponsored a party for more than 50 children at GrandWest Casino on Saturday and Metropolitan Life, with Reach for a Dream, sponsored most of the party at Phandulwazi Hall in Langa on Sunday.

The hall was festooned with balloons and streamers.

Sibongile sat on the stage with her aunt's family and a church choir. Children filled tiny colourful chairs at a central table and, as the afternoon wore on, the crowd in the hall swelled until even the aisles between the tables were packed.

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"Sibongile never feels sorry for herself," said Sister Maria, principal of St Anthony's preschool, which the little girl attends. "She has shown me, in my old age, how to overcome difficulties and sickness. One day she is in hospital, the next she is back in school, and quite happy again.

"This is what I hope - that other people with HIV-positive children will come forward and not hide the state of their children - and that they can have such a party too."

The party lasted for over five hours as church choirs from Bishop Lavis, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu rocked the hall with gospel music.

Priests, family and the principal of Sibongile's nursery school delivered speeches praising the little girl's zest for life.

"Sibongile is getting quite spoilt with all this attention, but that is good, because we don't know how much longer she will be with us," said Vuyani Jacobs of the Treatment Action Campaign, who helped organise the party.

"Last night, when I was with her, she prayed as she does every night: 'Lord, if you can't take this illness from me, make it easier for me to live with.'

"Sibongile is excited about her birthday," said her aunt.

"I don't think she is very sad about her disease, as I don't think she is really aware of what it means."

 

KWALANGA SPECIAL

67 minutes spent with children

By Staff Reporter

Jul 27, 2016

 

 Photo By Berea Mail

 

The children were ecstatic to receive meals and party packs.

Staff of the Early Learning Resource Unit (Elru), in Lansdowne, visited the Phandulwazi community hall in Langa, to give their 67 minutes for Mandela Day.

The Elru team arrived with soup and bread, as well as take-home packs full of delicious goodies. This initiative was sponsored by two of Elru’s development partners, the Rolf-Stephan Nussbaum Foundation and Joint Aid Management SA (JAM SA).

JAM SA donated takkies to all the children of the Langa programme and the Rolf-Stephan Nussbaum Foundation donated carpets for 40 playgroups, along with soap, facecloths and toilet rolls for the 240 children.

Elru has projects in Langa, Khayelitsha, Philippi, Saldanha, the Northern Cape and the North West, with a focus on 9 000 children under the age of five years.

Development partner JAM SA feeds all the children daily with porridge. For the Mandela Day initiative, the Elru staff donated soup, bread, and party packs, and the programme consisted of children singing the songs that they learn in the playgroups and at home.

Elru’s Family and Community Motivators programme started in 2010 in Langa with five women, and now there are 57 women in it. These women are often the breadwinners in their families.

ATHLONE NEWS

GOSPEL POWER

Gospel duo release their new album

By Phiri Cawe

Nov 12, 2020

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Veteran gospel musicians Kholekile Qongqo, left and Sithembiso Soboyisi entertain the crowd in Langa.

Two musicians who have been starved of an income due to the lockdown restrictions which prevented gatherings and live performances shared with Vukani what it has been like to finally perform in front of a live audience.

On Saturday, Kholekile Qongqo and Reverend Sithembiso Soboyisi launched their new album, Thembalimbi, at Phandulwazi Hall in Langa.

“It has been difficult for all the artists country-wide. We were forced to sit at home with nothing to show.

The province has not even given us the relief funding. We only heard about it in the newspapers and (on the) radio. But we are grateful to have a chance to perform in front of an audience.

“This is something to be proud of. We only hope that as time goes, things will be different,” said Sithembiso.

Sithembiso and Kholekile took full advantage of the day to perform their best songs, among them duets, for their enthusiastic crowd.

“This is the first show since March. We have never seen our fans for such a long time. We missed the stage and performances like this. As gospel artists we ought to give hope to the masses and it is now that time that we should do that. The only hope we have now is that the virus can go away so we can have big shows and concerts.

But we are happy with the little chance we have to perform for them, give them hope through the song,” Kholekile told Vukani.

The two applauded their audience for adhering to lockdown protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19. They said it was good to see people sanitising their hands and wearing masks.

“This is not the time to break the rules but encourage our people to live a clean life,” said Kholekile.

“As gospel artists, we have a responsibility to not only spread the word of God but to make people aware of their surroundings and dangers. We are all aware that there is word of a second wave, so we want people to be vigilant at all times.”

VUKANI NEWS