Making Movies in Lacey Road

Over the last few months I've been running video workshops with youth in Lacey Road. It's been really enjoyable and the first round of videos are almost done. Here are some shots of one of the crews hard at work on their production, a fiction about the perils faced by a girl living in Lacey Road.

Contribute caregiver kits!

Over the next few months we will be starting a drive to create home-based care kits for caregivers working in Kennedy Road, Lacey Road and some of the other shack settlements in Durban.

Caregivers are working as volunteers in the settlements to look after those suffering from HIV and AIDS. With so little, they are doing so much to take care of people in their communties.

Volunteers we spoke to expressed an urgent need for simple kits with basics like bandages and latex gloves to help them do their work better.

The kits will include antibacterial soap, petroleum jelly to moisturize and protect dry skin to prevent infection, antifungal cream, cotton balls to clean mouths and sores, latex gloves, washcloths, notebooks and pens to keep records, and a flashlight with batteries in case patients need help in the night.

If you would like to help by contributing a kit, holding an event to fundraise for caregiver kits, or donate funds towards makign kits please email me:
shannondawnwalsh at gmail dot com

For Martha

I've not been writing much about the personal experiences, struggles, connections and trails I've been having working in Kennedy Road, Lacey Road and Crossmoor.

I'm spending a huge amount of time these days, especially in Kennedy Road, dealing with emergencies around health and poverty. But it's also been a lovely time of quiet moments in the night around candle-light sharing silence and stories, the family dramas, the laughter and the daily annoyances. The growing pains of some of the youth, and the inching along through a difficult system to get grants, education, health care. Some things have been hard to write about here - it seems easier to write about formal politics than the intimacies of the struggle for bare life, sickness, and sadness.

But there are stories to tell.

Easter weekend was a hard one. On Good Friday we lost Martha Mthembu. Mother to 6. Thirty years old. Only one month younger than I am.

I will dearly miss her, but we will dignify and glorify her memory through the absolutely divine children she left behind and who I am, I must admit, quite smitten with.

For them, for now.

Kennedy 5 admitted to prison hospital after 8 days of hunger strike

Terrible news of the deteriorating condition of the 5 men in Westville prison. Friday will see everyone in court again, hopefully with some progress made.

Last night there was a rally and small march from the Kennedy Road hall to the Sydenham Police station focused on Glen Nayager. Their list of greviences included charges of racism, criminilisation of the poor, 'making poverty a crime', and the lack of respect for shackdwellers' homes. The memorandum they prepared also focused on how police are protecting and working with criminals, working with enemies of Abahlali, threatening journalists, not allowing cases to be opened against police and ignoring crimes against shackdwellers.

The police banned the march and S'bu and other leaders ended up chatting with the notorious Nayager at the Kennedy Road office while people gathered in the hall danced and sang.

Later a small group of 14 marched on the station to hand over a detailed memorandum to Nayager. The full memorandum is here.

It's worrying that stronger solidarity is not being built in a situation in which the five jailed men are becoming increasingly ill. The case has been confusing and complicated, that, mixed with perhaps fears from the communtiy might be partially responsible. Hopefully Friday will see the release of the men so that a more detailed investigation can be conducted.