The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project

At the beginning of South Africa’s democratic change in 1994, the Victoria Mxenge Housing Project was founded by a group of 12 women who lived in shacks on the barren outskirts of Cape Town. These women had come from rural areas and were poor, vulnerable and semi-literate. Yet they learned how to bu...

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Autore principale: Ismail, Salma
Natura: Online
Lingua:inglese
Pubblicazione: UCT Press 2024
Accesso online:ONIX_20240215_9781775821687_18
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author Ismail, Salma
author_browse Ismail, Salma
author_facet Ismail, Salma
author_sort Ismail, Salma
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description At the beginning of South Africa’s democratic change in 1994, the Victoria Mxenge Housing Project was founded by a group of 12 women who lived in shacks on the barren outskirts of Cape Town. These women had come from rural areas and were poor, vulnerable and semi-literate. Yet they learned how to build, negotiate with the government and NGOs, architects and building experts, and form alliances with homeless social movements locally and internationally. The desolate piece of land they occupied is now a thriving, sustainable community of more than 5 000 houses. Over a period of 10 years Salma Ismail tracked the history of the Victoria Mxenge Housing Project, from its start as a development organisation to its evolution into a social movement and then as a service provider. Through the stories of these women, she describes the choices a social movement made when caught up in the struggle to mobilise for housing and become service providers in a context in which the state did not live up to its social responsibilities. The text weaves together perspectives on the usefulness and limitations of Popular Education, the value of local and traditional knowledge, and of experiential learning and learning in an informal context. This book taps into the growing international interest in ‘citizen learning’ in the context of social movements.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1341562024-02-15T07:44:35Z The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project Ismail, Salma At the beginning of South Africa’s democratic change in 1994, the Victoria Mxenge Housing Project was founded by a group of 12 women who lived in shacks on the barren outskirts of Cape Town. These women had come from rural areas and were poor, vulnerable and semi-literate. Yet they learned how to build, negotiate with the government and NGOs, architects and building experts, and form alliances with homeless social movements locally and internationally. The desolate piece of land they occupied is now a thriving, sustainable community of more than 5 000 houses. Over a period of 10 years Salma Ismail tracked the history of the Victoria Mxenge Housing Project, from its start as a development organisation to its evolution into a social movement and then as a service provider. Through the stories of these women, she describes the choices a social movement made when caught up in the struggle to mobilise for housing and become service providers in a context in which the state did not live up to its social responsibilities. The text weaves together perspectives on the usefulness and limitations of Popular Education, the value of local and traditional knowledge, and of experiential learning and learning in an informal context. This book taps into the growing international interest in ‘citizen learning’ in the context of social movements. 2024-02-15T07:44:33Z 2024-02-15T07:44:33Z 2015 book ONIX_20240215_9781775821687_18 9781775821687 9781919895529 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/134156 eng image/jpeg Attribution 4.0 International https://www.booksdirect.co.za/item/the_victoria_mxenge_housing_project https://openuctpress.uct.ac.za/uctpress/catalog/view/54/93/232 UCT Press 10.58331/UCTPRESS.54 10.58331/UCTPRESS.54 9ab8d8c8-92ff-4470-a14e-e60f2c992ea5 9781775821687 9781919895529 166 Cape Town open access
spellingShingle Ismail, Salma
The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project
title The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project
title_full The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project
title_fullStr The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project
title_full_unstemmed The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project
title_short The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project
title_sort victoria mxenge housing project
url ONIX_20240215_9781775821687_18
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