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Dikhatole, Germiston: An informal settlement in the Gauteng Province, with a population of approximately 50 000 people. Dikhatole is notorious as an area of high crime. It is a poor and marginalized urban community, characterised by extreme poverty, a lack of basic service provision and high levels of unemployment. There is only one primary school in the area attended by 1 400 children, though there are likely to be 15 000 other children below the age of 15 in the community, currently receiving no formal education. Accommodation varies from brick houses to tin shacks, which emerge on inadequate and basic roads.
Young children can be seen playing wearing little clothing, in dirty water ditches, sometimes with live electricity cables running through them. Substance abuse, alcoholism, and prostitution are all issues within the community, and the prevalence of teenage pregnancies, STD's and HIV/Aids is extremely high due to lack of access to family planning, sexual health and counseling services. Help is urgently needed within this community.
ORT has, over the past 3 years, established itself in the Dikhatole community, working closely with members to improve standards of living and build capacity. ORT works primarily in the primary school, crèches and CMC (Community Management Committee) in an effort to respond to its vast and urgent needs.
How will it be accomplished?
The day will be based around the new community building that is known as the boiler room, and at the primary school based in Dikhatole. The boiler room is a large building that will be used for many different communal activities. Surrounding the hall is a grassy area that will be used as a safe play area for children. Adjacent to the boiler room is a big field that is part of the premises. Do it Day will be the official launch of the boiler room. The day will consist of the following:
Children:
- Arts and Crafts - Aim - for the children to take something home with them which they have made (masks, posters, finger paintings, and musical instruments). Rooms with tables of art resources manned by a volunteer, with other volunteers to help and entertain the children. This will take place at the primary school.
Adults:
- Football game on the premises of the boiler room for youth and men.
- Flat bread making. Need flour, water and salt. Mix flour with water and a little salt to get a doughy consistency. Need to have a burner or open fire, (open fire better), and on top place a tin tray, pot that will conduct the heat. Take a little dough and flatten it out to be as thin as possible (the thinner it is the quicker it cooks) and place on the tin or pot. Within a few minutes the bread will be ready. Once ready the bread will lift off pot/tray easily. Each woman who makes the bread successfully will get a bag of flour to take home. It will be recommended that each of the women bring their own pot. This will all take place on the premises of the boiler room.
- Clean up the boiler room and the premises around it. This will involve picking up litter and dangerous objects, and could involve some gardening such as weeding.
- Painting the walls of the boiler room. Volunteers will work with members of the community to paint the walls and a mural in the boiler room.
General:
Two stereos to be provided by ORT - one for the school and one for the boiler room.
Beneficiaries: who are they?
Do it Day in Dikhatole has the potential to be both a great fun day in the community as well as having sustainable benefits from running the day in Dikhatole. The children will have had a day of interaction with people from outside their community, and will go home with masks or musical instruments that they will have made themselves. The women would have learned a new cooking skill. This is an ideal day to launch the boiler room as the new community centre and to be able to show the community what they can do with it, as well as making it a brighter, safer area for the people of Dikhatole.
What are the key challenges you foresee?
Capacity – controlling the number of people that turn up from the community to the event and getting funds and sponsors.
The total cost for the day will be R11 700.00. Between the arts and crafts for the children, and the bread making, 650 people from the Dikhatole community will be directly affected by the day, which works out to be R18 per person for the day. This is not including the whole community who benefit from the work on the boiler room, the people who will be involved with the football games and the people who will benefit from the clothing distribution.
What will it take to achieve this?
We need people who will be able to do the following:
- Arts and Crafts - 20 volunteers
- Football - 2 volunteers
- Making Bread - 12 volunteers
- Clean up - 4 volunteers
- Co-ordinator - 2 volunteers
- Painting boiler room - 2 volunteers
We aim to get as much budget and materials donated as possible.
Material Amount Cost
- Balloons 2000 @ R1.50 each
- Beans 5kg @ R40/5kg
- Bubbles 20 bottles @ R5 per bottle
- Flour 300kg @ R7/kg
- Footballs 4 @ R40 each
- Glue 10 sticks @ R15 each
- Little Bouncy Balls 100 @ R2 each
- Material 5 square meters @ R50 per square meter
- Paint 12 big bottles of paint (6 colors x2) @ R30 per bottle
- Paint brushes 150 @ R4 each
- Paper 2 reams of plain paper @ R30 per ream
- Rice 5 kg @ R40
- Salt 2kg @ R20/kg
- Stickers 1000 plain stickers @ R1 per sticker
- Sweets 5000 individual sweets @ R0.50 per sweet
- Wood for Fire 30 bags @ R10 per bag
- 10 L wall paint @ R80 per litre
Total Cost: R 11700
To be collected in different communities recycling resources:
- Cans as much as possible
- Tins as much as possible
- Sticks as much as possible
- Bottles as much as possible
- Cardboard as much as possible
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