Guts from the gutters, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

South African – Danish Environmental Co-operation

Guts from the gutters

In a historical corner of the townships that comprise Soweto, a truck load of drainage pipes has got the community involved in development – and created new hope that one day democracy will also mean better living conditions

You don’t get far down the dusty roads of Kliptown without being reminded of the proud history of a now somewhat run-down corner of Soweto. One of the residents is bound to point out where leaders of the African National Congress met in 1955 to write the Freedom Charter, the famous vision for a South Africa without apartheid.

"South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white," says one of the first paragraphs. Revolutionary words at a time when most of black Africa was busy planning the eviction of its colonial masters, and the colonial masters of South Africa were busy planning the eviction of their countrymen to so-called homelands.

The vision became reality with Nelson Mandela’s ascent to power in 1994. But people in the sprawling black townships of Soweto outside Johannesburg initially didn’t get much pay-off for their tolerance of the white minority and 40 years of patience.

The historical houses in Kliptown were used as a set for Cry, The Beloved Country and other movies depicting the rise and fall of apartheid. But when the movie companies and their generators moved on, the residents once again found themselves in houses without electricity. Outside, the kids were playing in roads filled with dirty water.

Visions of cleaner water

"People are so angry here. It was here the Freedom Charter was signed. And yet it is the last place to get development," says Donald Kgasi, one of the few who have walked the hard road from Kliptown to university.

In 2000, only 20 children in an area with a population of some 20 000 passed their matric examination with university exemption. As Kgasi takes us around Kliptown, he stops regularly to show us where shack settlements have overgrown the soccer fields and open spaces of his youth.

All this to explain why officials from the Department of Water and Forestry, assisted by Danced consultants, started a minor revolution when they entered Kliptown with a truck load of drainage pipes. The plastic pipes were manifestations of the strategy for improved water quality in densely populated areas, which Danced and the department have worked on since 1997.

Kliptown was selected as one of nine pilot projects, one in each province. The chosen areas all had more or less similar problems to Kliptown’s: drain water, waste and storm water were mixed into an unwholesome brew which was usually to be found streaming down the roads.

Flush toilets must wait

The drain water comes from the communal taps where residents get water, wash their dishes and launder their clothes. The waste was often thrown in the middle of the street. And the almost daily thunder storms during Johannesburg’s summer months washed it all into the Klipspruit stream at the bottom of the slope on which Kliptown is built.

The aim of the project is to separate it all: waste in containers and drainage water in pipes, so that storm water can make its way to the river without taking any pollution along with it.

The residents wanted the department and Danced to go all the way and provide them with flush toilets as well. But, for the time being, they have had to settle for chemical toilets emptied regularly by a sanitation truck. The reason is partly financial constraints, partly somewhat ambitious visions of substituting the shacks with brick houses.

The project in Kliptown would never have succeeded without intense motivation. Many of the house owners have been asked firmly to make sure that they themselves pay for drainage pipes from their private outlets to the main pipe. And the struggle against waste would have made no headway if the residents hadn’t agreed to carry the waste a little further and dump it in containers.

"This project has opened our eyes to how you can involve the community. Even if there seems to be no money here, let us contribute the little we have," says Kgasi.

An important motivating factor is the very real possibility of healthier kids, when they are no longer forced to play in drain water and waste.

"In areas where water is no longer running down the roads, people say ‘thank God, we got rid of the smell’," says Kgasi.

Development as a side effect

Arguably the project’s greatest success goes beyond pipes and water quality. The intervention has brought new hope to an area which formerly had to rely on help from local drug lords when it ran into trouble. The pushers were often the only ones bringing money to Kliptown.

Kgasi tells how people in the area were starving for development and all too eager to use the project to breathe new life into the community.

"The politicians walked out on us and only came back to collect votes. Now we only see them in times of floods," says Kgasi.

He is talking about the disappointment that often followed the initial years of celebrations after the fall of apartheid. South Africa’s economy didn’t grow fast enough to fulfil the ANC’s election promise of "A better life for all". And in areas like Kliptown, the politicians usually became scapegoats.

Kgasi is himself a member of the ANC.

"But I’ll rather channel my energy into development than rhetoric," he says.

Kgasi is studying building construction, but has taken a year off to be a member of the residents’ "Environmental Reference Group" which runs the project with inputs from the department and Danced. Kgasi’s new status as community leader has forced him to abandon friends whose lifestyle is not entirely legal.

"I’ll still greet them. But if I am involved in development, I can’t have friends who are detrimental to the community," he says.

A new power-base

John Legoale, the chairman of the reference group, explains how the fight for a better life has taken over from the political struggle against apartheid: "The economical fight is new for us. We need the type of changes which Danced and the department has helped us with. This project has brought us together as stakeholders, not from political parties, but from non-governmental organizations, churches and so on."

"If we had purely put in infrastructure such as pipes, the project would not have been sustainable. So our approach was to involve the local community and let them drive the project themselves," says Manda Hinsch, Deputy Director General in the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.

She explains that this pilot project is part of an overall aim to find sustainable ways of implementing the waste management strategy.

By delivering much needed services, the project in Kliptown has become a potential power base for the people involved in it. But this makes it a threat against existing structures. A few months after the project started, local leaders from the residents’ organization SANCO tried to get themselves involved by claiming that the diameter of the drainage pipes was to small.

"They came up with problems which were not real problems. Everybody is trying to get on the band wagon because they can see the project is working," says Lee Boyd who is representing Department of Water Affairs and Forestry on the project.

But the success of the project has also attracted people who have other things to offer than a desire for power.

"Other donors are now ready to support new projects here because they can see how the local community is involved," says Boyd.

Legoale is very impressed with the way Boyd has delegated responsibilities: "Lee is not doing things for us. She says, ‘Here is the money, do what you need to do.’ We are planning, we are managing. That is one of the things we are proud of. Our government doesn’t normally do things that way. But that’s the way we want democracy," he says.