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- A successful recycling project in Xakabantu, a poverty-stricken informal settlement near Vrygrond is creating jobs and utilising skills within a community that is rife with unemployment.
- The recycling business model is “different to others” as anyone who participates works for themselves and is “not a boss”.
- The recyclables are collected across Cape Town, from Fish Hoek to the city centre.
A successful recycling project in Xakabantu, a poverty-stricken informal settlement near Vrygrond is creating jobs and utilising skills within a community that is rife with unemployment.
Mike Kumalo, a community leader from the settlement, explained that their Back to Work campaign focuses on taking the initiative to create jobs.
“At the Back to Work campaign centre we deal with initiatives of what previous president Thabo Mbeki used to say; ‘Wake up and do something for yourself’ and not just sit back and complain.
“The issue of fighting for employment, be it the municipality or the private sector, goes without saying that workers who take initiative create work.
“And not everyone is going to be employed by the municipality which means there is a need for some of us to shift our mindset from wanting to be employed to creating work.”
Kumalo explained that the recycling project, which began a year ago, attracts local skills in the community.
“This is one of the successful projects where there is recycling and food gardening where we try and attract the local skills.
“You would be surprised how much skills we have in this community, among the poor people.”
The recycling business model is “different to others” as anyone who participates works for themselves and is “not a boss”.
“I am very passionate about recycling because it is where mass employment is possible.
“You can have these recycling centres and adopt the model of the Back to Work campaign and I’m sure we would be able to push back this extreme poverty.
“People will not become so desperate in order to buy bread or something for the children.”
The recyclables are collected across Cape Town, from Fish Hoek to the city centre.
“It is not just rubbish, there are jobs that can come from it and people can survive from it. There’s also a responsibility from the campaign’s side not to only educate our community that benefit but the communities that can participate.”
Shiyaam Fredericks (37), an unemployed mother of five from Hillview, says the project helps her to survive.
“It is very difficult to find a full-time job and what makes it harder is that I lost my ID documents. I must still get money together for an ID, which costs around R140 but the money I make with recycling I use for food.”
The mom adds that the initiative ensures that she has money to buy food for her children every day.
“We work here to make money to survive because we don’t have jobs that we can go to every day. We help uncle Mike every day and he provides the work. We sort it and take it to the scale and at the end of the day, we get paid for it.
“It helps because we can come every day and get paid either every day.”
