Johannesburg Inner City Partnership and SEF
Strategic implementation partner Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP) works in partnership with the City of Johannesburg to regenerate the Inner City. The recent Bree Street explosion and the 80 Albert Street fire, where almost 80 people lost their lives, are bleak reminders of how urgently the Inner City needs to be transformed.
JICP works with a variety of partners on projects like urban management, homelessness, and placemaking, contributing to urban regeneration, addressing social challenges, and providing jobs to over 1600 unemployed individuals via the Social Employment Fund (SEF).
Clean City SA
SEF participant, Sifiso Khanyile, 25, says “Clean City SA made a huge difference in the Inner City of Johannesburg. The project uplifted our standards of living because we were able to pay rent and buy groceries from our basic wages. Most importantly, Clean City SA made us to understand the importance of caring for the environment, because of the training we received.”
Makers Valley Partnership
Makers Valley Partnership undertakes a wide variety of work from urban management, cleaning public spaces and community patrolling to care for the elderly together with numerous grassroots organisations within their community. Water for the Future (WFTF) focuses on the rehabilitation of the Jukskei River, removal of alien invasive species, environmental education, and supporting small business opportunities. Fatima Haniff, 54, a WFTF participant, says: “As a resident in the community for the past 30 years I have watched with great concern as we deteriorated and degenerated as a community. This initiative is providing me an opportunity to better myself not only mentally but physically as well. In the recent months I have been able to rekindle my interests in nature and my passion for working with community and conservation environment”.
Johannesburg Homelessness Network
Empowering homeless and vulnerable communities with employment opportunities is a key part of the Inner City regeneration programme. The Johannesburg Homelessness Network (JHN), through their initiative of establishing urban vegetable gardens on sites across the city, connects homeless individuals with social auxiliary workers. The vegetables harvested are used to feed the participants, sent to local soup kitchens or sold to generate additional income for the programme. Sheila Jacobs, 47, a participant on the JHN SEF programme, has gone from sleeping in a local park with her 5-year-old child, to renting accommodation and putting her son into a creche. She notes that she no longer has the stress of not knowing where their next meal is coming from. Through SEF Programme Training she attended a two-day course and received a certificate in hydroponic gardening, and in her own capacity has signed up for a computer course.
Mould Empower Serve
Mould Empower Serve (MES), involve SEF participants to assist with pre-school children, school-goers, at-risk youth, and struggling families. Dlala Nje operates two community centres in Ponte City that provide safe spaces for young children and teenagers to learn and play. Boundless City’s after-school program encompasses a library and art activities for children in collaboration with another JICP partner, The Literary District.
Public space activation
Public space activation is a vital component of urban regeneration. Boundless City integrates public art, park maintenance and safety measures in Ernest Oppenheimer Park with a basketball program for youth. Sport for Social Change provide after-school programs like street racket, squash, skateboarding, and boxing but also provide lessons in gardening, life skills, and chess in public spaces across the Inner City.
Inner City tourism has been challenging due to the myriad of wicked Inner City problems and has battled to pick up since COVID. The JICP works with the sector to improve tourism offerings across the Inner City. Dlala Nje has trained SEF participants as tour guides, offering a variety of tours across the Inner City, and at Ponte City.
Advancing the underemployed
These projects provide much needed jobs to unemployed Inner City individuals, offering previously underemployed people a platform from which to transition into full-time employment or generate their own income streams. The JICP Programme employs on average 70% inner city youth, and 60% women. Such initiatives create the necessary conditions for Inner City regeneration – the wellbeing of Inner City citizens, a range of Inner City places in which to live, work and play, and an inclusive economy.
