SHAWCO Project - KHAYELITSHA IT-CENTER (KIT)

HISTORY

Cape Town initially opposed implementing the Group Areas Act passed in 1950 and residential areas in the city remained un-segregated until the first Group Areas were declared in the city in 1957. When Cape Town did start implementing the Group Areas Act, it did so more severely than any other major city; by mid 1980s it became one of the most segregated cities in South Africa.

The discrimination and black population control by the apartheid regime did not prevent blacks from settling in the outskirts of Cape Town. After the scrapping of pass laws in 1987 many blacks, mainly Xhosas, moved into areas around Cape Town in search of work. By this time many blacks were already illegally settled in townships like Nyanga and Crossroads. As the black population grew, the apartheid regime sought to solve the ‘problem’ by establishing new black neighborhoods. Khayelitsha was established in 1985 and large numbers of people were forcefully relocated there, mostly peacefully, but occasionally accompanied with violence.

The Western Cape was a preference area for the local colored population and a system called influx control was in place preventing Xhosas from travelling from the Transkey without the required permit. After the historic 1994 elections, hundreds of thousands moved to urban areas in search of work, education, or both. Many of them erected shacks made of tin, wood and cardboard. Nowadays Khayelitsha has an estimated population of more than 450,000 (last figures are date from 2005), and its population is very young: fewer than 7% of its residents are over 50 years old and over 40% are under 19 years old. There are 35 Primary Schools and 18 Secondary Schools in Khayelitsha.

Since the ANC (African National Congress – the most popular political party in South Africa) come to power in the country in 1994, the ruling party claims that living conditions in the township have improved markedly. There have been many developments such as new brick housing being built, new schools being built, and the creation of a central business district in the Township. However many residents strongly dispute the claim that the quality of life has improved. They claim that crime rates remain very high and that only a small portion of residents see improvements as a result of infrastructure and welfare interventions. Around 70% of residents still live in shacks and one in three people have to walk 200 meters or further to access to water.

OUR PROJECT

Our team, composed by Morgane Monnot (Msc), Blandine Devriendt (III^rd year) and Grégoire de la Lande d’Olce (III^rd year) went to this township. We went there to discover people, to talk with them, to understand what they exactly need, what they can expect from us. We had the opportunity to meet a pastor and his wife – Joseph and Elizabeth – from  Life Community Welfare (LCW), a Non Profit Organization which aims to make a difference in the lives of less privileged people in the communities, especially children and senior citizens. Since the first meeting, we all had a good feeling!

Our initial project was to build a sustainable business based on production of school uniforms with 6 sewing machines the organization has. These sewing machines were stored without being used. It is a very useful resource to create revenues for LCW and for the community. We when started to do researches on suppliers to get cheap raw materials (cotton, fabric…), etc. We also started to find some women willing to work for this project. BUT, during our market study we were wondering if this business would be as useful to the community as we thought at the beginning. The pastor told us that it was a very nice mission, but something could be more useful for the community.

Actually, LCW has a computer room, with around 20 computers and 1 printer that has to be fixed and which are not used for the moment. Here is our project: setting up a business with these resources. So we had the idea to create an IT-Center and an Internet Café within the township – KIT, Khayelitsha IT-center. The aim of this center is to provide IT lessons to people, and to give them an access to Internet. Two major skills that are compulsory needed to get a job. The services that we want to implement are the following:

IT-Center	Internet Café
Typing	Internet usage
Windows introduction	E-mail
Lessons on Word & Excel	Scanning
Printing	Copying
Faxing

OUR CHALLENGES

Although this project seems to be easy to do, we encounter several difficulties. The major one is the fact that we have absolutely no resources (except computers). Actually, LCW does not have access to Internet neither to the electricity. For the moment, they use the power from their neighbor. That is a good way to get electricity for a short time, but it is not a sustainable solution. Concerning the Internet connection, they do not have any one. Therefore, for the moment, we are writing a business plan that could be implemented when power and internet will be available.

Nevertheless, as we do not want to stay arms crossed, we decided to start running the IT-Center. A business plan has to be conducted in order to well understand the market, the needs, the habits of people, their willingness to pay or not etc. And when we were doing this market study, we encounter another major challenge. We thought that our IT-Center would be the first in Khayelitsha, according to what people told us. That is false as there is already another one. As we are working as social entrepreneurs, the challenge is to give lessons cheaper than our competitors does, without destroying his business.

Another challenge is the fact that we will have to give the first lessons to the future trainers. As we do not have any money, any resources except computers, and in order to make the center sustainable, we will give lessons to 5 young people from Khayelitsha who will become the trainers of the center. It means that we have to find 5 reliable persons and willing to work at beginning for free (we are going to wait to be on the break-even point to give them a salary).

CONCLUSIONS

As Shawco’s volunteers, we are the first to set up a business in this township, Shawco never operated here: a very challenging mission that give us faith to work for people who need it, who deserve it! All the more so that this experience is very professional as we will have to write several business plans in our future carriers.

The Team - From Left to Right

Monnot Morgane – Devriendt Blandine – Elizabeth – Her 2-day old baby – de la Lande d’Olce Grégoire 

SHAWCO Project - Rags 2 Riches

Most SHAWCO projects are designed to be self sustainable, however, SHAWCO still relies on donations. The Rags 2 Riches project was designed to sustain SHAWCO's other projects without the help of donations. The project in itself is a charity shop which sells secondhand clothes collected from richer neighbourhoods. The target customers are two distinct groups: the first one is students that are looking for unique, cheap and quality clothes, the second group is women from the townships that buy clothes from Rags 2 Riches for cheap and resell them back in the townships to make a profit. 

The store opened a year and a half ago and is doing well. It has reached a wide audience, still it needs to build a stronger brand image and to make more and more people aware of its goal (mostly children education). Otherwise than marketing, the aim is to empower the women from the townships and to develop a sustainable model of community business that will help improve the business skills of the stakeholders.

(Pictures of the store are to come!)

Where we live

Our gang (because we are now definitely a gang) is staying at Observatory, which if you are part the hip crowd will call OBZ. It is one of the coolest, busiest, trendiest place in Cape Town, we would not have settled for anything less. Here is a little photo tour of some places to know in OBZ, there is a lot more to see but as far as OBZ is concerned, a picture cannot replace the live experience of this exciting neighbourhood. You will have to come and see for yourself one day!

When we went to the townships

We discovered the local cuisine and a popular dish which is basically a cooked sheep's head nicknamed 'smilee' because it looks like it is smiling when the skin is peeled off. It is too bad that the Internet does not convey odours, because you would have loved the smell of sheeps guts in the morning! We also had a chance to try the local beer with the inhabitants, served in a paint can and shared between the group. Five of us promised to stop drinking forever after the first sip.

When we went to the Cape of Good Hope

Remember 'Spes Bona'? We will not say much about it as the view left us speechless. But you know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Day 2 in Cape Town

Well rested and ready to explore!
First stop on the way to infinite knowledge is the University of Cape Town (which we affectionately call UCT). The University was founded in 1829 and is the oldest university in South Africa. It is also ranked the first African university. It was also voted "Best view from the campus" by the team. We are sorry to say that IÉSEG cannot compete.

This is the coat of arms of UCT, the motto is "Spes Bona" which means "Good Hope".

University of Cape Town website

And this link to a comparison of the figures about South Africa and France using Wolfram Alpha, just so you know.

Day 1 in Cape Town

After 11 hours of flight, we finally arrive in Cape Town. It's 8:00 am and the very first thing we see (apart from the airport parking lot) is Table Mountain with a double rainbow going all the way across. The team is sorry to say that we were too tired to think about taking a picture but the sense of wonder and extraordinary that we felt overwhelmed with made us know that the south african experience we were about to have was going to change our lives (if this sounds cheesy remember that we just got out of an 11 hour flight).

The first (friendly) persons that we met were Niv, who is going to be in charge of our group during the program, and Joe who is going to drive us around in the SHAWCO bus during our stay. 

We then headed off to the 41 Trill Road in Observatory where we are all staying in the backpackers called 33 South, where the manager is called Alan and is the nicest and coolest backpackers manager we have ever met.

We took the afternoon to regain energy after such a long trip and had the opportunity to meet a little friend whose mum works at the backpackers. Communication was restrained by the fact that he speaks one of the many languages in South Africa which are not English (only the second most spoken language in South Africa).

More pictures to come, we still need to sort out the Internet restriction at the backpackers.