City programme helps homeless rebuild their lives

Khulu* lived on Table Mountain for two years, eating in soup kitchens, until he found work sweeping streets as part of a programme run by the City of Cape Town and Khulisa Social Solutions. Today he has a job and owns a wendy house in Khayelitsha.

Bernard Chiguvare

News | 10 September 2015

Helping Andiswa

On 17 August we reported how a 43-year-old woman — who we called Andiswa — was left disabled after an especially brutal rape. Readers asked how they could help. We're pleased to report that Iliso Care Society is helping out.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 10 September 2015

This place stinks, say Duncan Village residents

“Not only does this place stink, pigs eat here as well, making the place smell even more," says Sakhumzi Kholisile of Khayelitsha informal settlement in Duncan Village, East London.

Siphesihle Matyila

News | 10 September 2015

Angry Mdantsane residents protest quality of RDP houses

Residents of Walter Sisulu in Mdantsane protested on Tuesday, claiming the RDP houses they were due to move into had not been built properly.

Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik

News | 9 September 2015

Pietermaritzburg’s leaking taps in the midst of a water shortage

France location in Pietermaritzburg has faced a water crisis for months. Yet, say residents, water is left to leak from broken standpipes in this area and the nearby areas of Dambuza and Machibisa.

Ntombi Mbomvu

News | 9 September 2015

“If my baby is dead, why don’t they just tell me?”

After recovering from a difficult labour, Nolitha Kamana went to look for her baby in the hospital wards, only to find the child in the mortuary. Her story is one of scores collected by the Treatment Action Campaign highlighting problems in maternity and obstetrics units in Cape Town. GroundUp's Mary-Anne Gontsana spoke to some of the women.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

Feature | 9 September 2015

Rocking the Daisies puts township artists on the map

This year for the first time the celebrated Rocking the Daisies festival will showcase DJs from Khayelitsha, Langa and Gugulethu on a new stage, adding colour to what has seemed in the past to be a mostly ‘white’ lineup.

Zethu Gqola

News | 8 September 2015

Some of SA’s top companies are quietly breaking the law

Some of the top companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are flouting environmental laws and not telling their shareholders, according to a study by the Centre for Environmental Rights.

Alide Dasnois

Feature | 8 September 2015

Cato Manor’s struggle against state repression

Cato Manor has a long history of struggle and repression. Women have often been in the forefront of these struggles. This history is well known in Durban. Many families from KwaMashu have roots in Cato Manor. KwaMashu was created to house some of the people forcibly removed from Cato Manor under the Group Areas Act. They were taken from land in the city where they had some autonomy and moved out of the city to a segregated township under strict control of the apartheid state.

Ndabo Mzimela

Opinion | 8 September 2015

How poverty interferes with dreams: Andiswa Nkuphe’s story

Andiswa Nkuphe lives with her eight siblings. Their house is a shipping container. Despite good school results and ambitions of becoming a nurse, she has to take care of her siblings, because their mother has been sick for almost two years and she's been in hospital since January this year.

Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik

News | 8 September 2015

Naked and dead in the dirt

The man was almost naked. He had burn marks on his arms. There was a sock on one of his feet and he lay facedown in the dirt. He was found dead in Mfuleni this morning after what appeared to be an act of mob justice.

Masixole Feni and Ashleigh Furlong

News | 7 September 2015

How South Africans are learning from Somali businesses

Saeed Furaa arrived in South Africa in 1998 after fleeing Somalia where he had worked as a shepherd. Against the backdrop of xenophobic violence in April, Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said that foreigners needed to share their business practices with local business owners. Yet this is exactly what Furaa and other Somalis have been doing.

Yumna Mohamed

News | 7 September 2015

Cape Town’s informal recycling squad

Robert Thompson has been collecting material for recycling in Cape Town since 1999. On an average day he makes R100, selling the cardboard and paper he collects to Harrington Buy Back Centre (HBBC) in the city centre.

Bernard Chiguvare

News | 7 September 2015

Loss of her child prompted Khayelitsha woman to launch soup kitchen

The loss of her 11 year old child to TB prompted Vivian Zilo to start a soup kitchen to feed TB patients. Within three months she was feeding 300 people, and the Iliso Care Society has grown from there.

Pharie Sefali

News | 7 September 2015

Is the sale of sexual favours work?

What is work? This question came very much to the fore over the past week after Amnesty International, called for “sex work” to be decriminalised. The international human rights organisation made the call after a two-year investigation into the “sex industry”. It came shortly after two local gender equality and human rights groups also called for law change.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 7 September 2015

Human Rights Commission turns spotlight on business

Human rights violations in the workplace are a growing issue says Karam Singh, Western Cape manager of the SA Human Rights Commission, which is focusing on human rights in business in 2015-16.

Barbara Maregele

News | 7 September 2015