WORKSHOP OR TALKING SHOP?

Now, here is the dilemma. King Solomon said, "Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers, they succeed". On the other hand, on a morning like this, when the freezing winter winds are cutting through Munsieville's informal "shack" community, people are dying whilst the policy-makers, divided politicians and community strategists argue, posture and procrastinate.

Earlier this morning, along with a couple of Thoughtful Path Munsieville colleagues, I drove to a point near the shacks to collect a group of women for a meeting to thrash out plans to improve the safety of their shacks. I stopped not far from where yesterday I had met an old friend in the street, hobbling back to her ramshackle kiosk, obviously in serious discomfort. She told me how in May she had been shot by a young man who robbed her of the meagre takings of her micro-business. Now, she lived in constant fear.

Whilst waiting for the shack-dwelling women this morning, an emergency ambulance pitched up. A group shuffled towards it, led by one of the women due at the safety meeting. They bundled a man into the vehicle who had been stabbed repeatedly in the arm and face, in the middle of the night. I don't know if they tried to call for help at the time, but if they did, it would be unlikely to arrive until well into the daylight hours, as the emergency services regard it as a "no-go" area!

There on the windswept hillside where Munsieville is situated, we waited. Five minutes. Twenty-five minutes. Almost an hour. And slowly they arrived. As I waited, I thought long and hard about the plight of the families let down by talking people .... it pains me to say it, but they are predominantly men. I was shivering and trying to fend of a head cold, but soon forgot my woes as I thought of the dangers outlined in my previous blog - fire, smoke, paraffin ingestion by toddlers, actually, the very issues the women were coming to discuss.

My thoughts also went to those who are condemned, eighteen years after they were promised good housing in the new "free" South Africa, to exist in shacks that cannot keep the warmth in or the cold out. I thought about the young babies, the elderly and those who live with conditions such as AIDS and tuberculosis. I simply cannot begin to understand how they feel on a day like this and am sure that many will long for the end!

Eventually, we had all the women together and whisked them away to the warmth of our Children's Embassy. I was asked to set the scene for the discussions that then continued all morning. It was very clear that for these brave, inspiring, desperate women, all the talking must now give way to positive action. They are not calling for the destructive direct action seen in many townships, which merely transfers the blame and responsibility to others, but were intent on finding the small, almost microscopic actions they can take today, tomorrow and everyday, until they see them join together to transform the way children are being raised.

Even the South African government has failed thus far to deliver the homes they promised, so, as a small organisation, we could not even begin to do so. However, by supporting these women, we can create a movement of change which may not remove the shacks any time soon, but will at least render them as safe and secure as possible.

I am not prepared to argue with the wisdom of King Solomon - far from it; we do need many advisers, including these women, and even more so, the children in their care, so the talking will continue, but it is now time to ditch meaningless talking shops, and create genuine "work" shops which always produce positive change.

Ah, ha ha ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive!

It is cold today in Munsieville. It’s a little inconvenient for me because when I came from London a few days ago, I packed a couple of jumpers, but neither are really warm enough to fend off the icy blast of the frozen winds blowing across the higher plains of Gauteng Province. Inconvenient, but not exactly life-threatening, because I will get into my car, drive fifteen minutes to Key West Mall in Krugersdorp, and buy something more adequate.

Poverty is many things, but perhaps most damaging of all is that it removes choice altogether or exchanges it with dread dilemmas. I have the choice of sitting huddled up to the radiator in my room, or popping into the lounge at the nearby Sterkfontein Heritage Lodge to sit in front of their roaring log fire. Or I could choose to stay cold, knowing that it will just be a temporary discomfort. But no, I will exercise my choice, and transfer a few Rand from my credit card to Edgars menswear department and walk out snug – problem solved. I have choice!

But this is a bad day for many in Munsieville, and millions in others in informal settlements across South Africa. They also have a choice today. They can either suffer the freezing bitterness of this sudden cold snap and hope for the best, or they can turn to the available methods of heating their shack homes in the knowledge that by tonight, their home could well be reduced to ashes, or their children and old people could be dead from carbon monoxide, or have choked on acrid smoke.

As I write this blog post, countless people in the township are frantically striving, not for a better future, but just for survival. Frail elderly people; people living with AIDS whose immune systems are shot; babies born just hours ago – and those who care for them, locked into a battle just to cope with temperatures that would scarcely draw a comment in London or New York.

Many will light coal fires in buckets and place them in the door of their shack. Others will use light fires of wood inside their homes. A few may dare to climb to overhead power lines to steal electricity through un-insulated wires fed through their tin roofed shack to feed rusty, deadly appliances. Others will burn paraffin on stoves set on rickety stands so easily knocked over by toddlers playing in the darkness of the tiny living space of their home.

The South African government estimates that 3,000 people die each year from paraffin-related accidents alone, with many times that number dying in fires caused by other factors. Over 80,000 children, twenty-three percent of whom are under three year of age, are poisoned or injured by paraffin annually!

Cold weather may be inconvenient to many of us, but it is killer in the townships, villages and informal settlements of South Africa. That is why shack safety has become such an important focus in our quest to help create safe communities where even the most vulnerable children can grow into healthy, productive adults.

Rusting shacks will never be ideal places to raise children but, with the extent of the housing crisis in Africa, it is hard to see a time when they will no longer exist. But our passion is to demonstrate that when householders take responsibility for their children, there are many simple, low cost ways of making them safe, eliminating many dangers and reducing other risks.

Our partner, GlaxoSmithKline, is working shoulder-to-shoulder with us and the Munsieville community to introduce a far-reaching transformation which changes the culture that tolerates dangerous living conditions. At the end of 2011, a team from the company helped launch the campaign and is returning at the end of 2012 for another high-profile, community-wide initiative to raise awareness of the risks and introduce families to the positive choices they have. Also, Daphne Van, who works with GSK in Canada , is now on loan from the company, working tirelessly to engage the community, change attitudes and identify the specific areas most likely to lead to rapid and sustained change.

On days like this, the people of Munsieville need heat. May the day soon arrive then they are no longer compelled to dice with death just to stay warm!