• WCCA Campaign Background, Platform of Demands to Municipalities and reports

• News from WCCA Campaign Partners

• WCCA Campaign diary

WCCA Campaign Background, Platform and Demands to Municipalities

StreetNet International is soliciting the co-operation of interested organisations to join its World Class Cities for All (WCCA) campaign in South Africa, in which StreetNet is challenging the traditional elitist approach to building “World Class Cities” in preparation for the FIFA World Cup in 2010 - and seeking to create a new, more inclusive concept of “World Class Cities for All” with the participation of street vendors and other groups of the (urban) poor. The campaign will have a strong focus on women and other vulnerable street vendors who are the first to lose their livelihoods and the most invisible in most plans for “World Class Cities”. 

WCCA Campaign document, platform of demands to be presented to municipalities and reports:

• 'International campaign: World Class Cities FOR ALL' 

• WCCA Platform of demands to be presented to municipalities

• Report of National Strategising Seminar with World Class Cities FOR ALL  Campaign Partners on 7 and 8 March 2007 in Orchidea Hotel, Braamfontein

• WCCA Report, December 2007   

International Dimension: StreetNet is part of the global Decent Work for Decent Life Campaign Alliance. Click here for the Alliance's international campaign on FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and Fair Games and Fair Play international campaign"Catch The Flame" which spreads the message that people, all over the world, want respect for workers’ rights to be one of the rules of the game at the Beijing Olympic Games.  

WCCA Campaign RED CARD list  

News from WCCA Campaign Partners

WCCA (World Class Cities for All) campaign Statement on Dismissal of construction workers 

StreetNet International, the international federation of street vendor organisations with over 300 000 members in 34 organisations in 30 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and leader of the World Class Cities for All (WCCA) Campaign: 

Notes with concern the unfair  dismissal  of  more  than  70 workers  by  the Mbombela  Joint  Venture  company  building  the 2010  stadium  in  the  Mbombela  Municipality in Nelspruit.  

Supports COSATU’s call for

• Unconditional re-instatement of the dismissed workers

• Opening of discussions with the NUM leadership with immediate effect

• Management to negotiate in good faith

• Management to place the interests of the province before their own greed and thirst for accumulation at all cost.

The WCCA campaign was launched in South Africa on 28 November 2006 to challenge traditional elitist First-World approaches to building World Class Cities, and create a new, more inclusive concept of “World Class Cities for All” as the country prepares to host the FIFA World Cup in 2010.  This is the South African part of an international campaign initiated by StreetNet International in May 2006, which has now been launched also in India by the National Alliance of Street Vendors of India (NASVI – StreetNet’s largest affiliate) in preparation for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010.

Issued by Pat Horn

International Co-ordinator

StreetNet International

Telephone: 031 -3074038

The death of two evicted from Joburg's pavement another sign of  anti-poor policy 

By Cheche Selepe, World Class Cities for All Campaign Media Officer

9th June, 2008: The deaths of two out of the 126 hawkers, including immigrants, evicted by the city of Joburg from the legally demarcated trading areas in central town is but just a drop in the ocean of what happens to poor evicted people.

Even without medical evidence on the causes of their deaths, the fact that they were both poor and were evicted from their trading stalls two months ago makes it hard to believe that the causes are unrelated.

'Since the evictions she would walk from one hawker to the next asking for transport fare to get back to her shack in impoverished Kliptown-Soweto,' says a traumatised hawker, adding that: 'If she could not afford transport fare, what about food.'

Well, like the majority of poor people, Motshedisi Mogwesa left her home town in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape for a better life in the 'city of gold'.

She survived peddling fruits, sweets and vegies on a city of Joburg demarcated trading pavement  down-town Jeppe Street.

Her late colleague used to repair shoes on a demarcated trading pavement on Jeppe Street until their dreams for a better living were shattered by the city of Joburg on March 8, this year, and now they lie dead, their dreams unfulfilled.

It was on this fateful day that the city of Joburg impounded stalls it built for the hawkers at tax-payers expense deeming them undesirable, cause for crime, obscure the unmanned CCV cameras and lots more excuses.

The city did not just remove the stalls, but it enlisted the services of the notorious Red-ants to remove poor Motshedisi and the rest of others including an HIV positive single-mother of four.

Feeling a sense of guilt for evicting poor people who never defaulted on paying rent in legally demarcated trading spaces, the bureaucrats on Loveday Street, Braamfontein, sought an alternative for their victims.

The breadwinners including the dead two were relocated to the shameful Bree Street taxi rank inside a building that failed dismally to be a fresh produce market.

Motshedisi was elected member of a committee to talk to the municipality on the matter, holding two meetings with the CEO of the state owned Metro Trading Company's Alfred Sam demanding return to the pavements.

At one meeting an HIV-positive woman painfully cried loud, begging Sam to return her to the pavement because her health demands that she eats fruits everyday.

All Sam could do was to admit the injustices meted against poor Motshedisi and others promising to resolve the crisis by mid-May. Even today he is still resolving the matter. He was short of also conceding to the popular fear that the city is planning to ban all street trading in Joburg and replace it with the often expensive linear market.

Most hawkers believe that the deaths cannot be divorced from the frustrations caused by broken promises and the increasing poverty they and the dead had to endure daily.

The hawkers committee shall meet the MTC today at eleven and then address the public at twelve (12h00) today.

Bree Street Taxi Rank/Mall.

At the MTC offices.

Nothing for us without us!

No relocation without alternatives!

Negotiations and social dialogue!

Contact details:

Hawker Jeff

082 594 9997

The World Class Cities for All campaign

Media Officer

Cheche Selepe

073 864 5424  

Statement by the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) in support of the memorandum of demands by the One Voice Of All Hawkers Association (OVOHA)

23 April 2008: One Voice Of All Hawkers Association (OVOHA) will this week deliver a memorandum of demands (pasted below) to the Johannesburg mayor. The Anti Privatisation Forum identifies with the struggle by hawkers to find a future in this city that is hostile to the poor. As much as the APF is waging struggles for housing and basic services, OVOHA is fighting for the rights of hawkers to make a living. The determination of the authorities to remove hawkers from the city's pavements is in keeping with the offense by police and local government to evict poor people from their homes and disconnect services. The very existence of the poor mars the City Council's vision of Joburg as a 'world-class' city, and its response is uniformly to remove or sideline people that are inconvenient to this vision.

The poors' presence in the inner city has been made criminally liable. Hawkers have been targeted, their goods and only means of survival confiscated by the Johannes- burg Metro police who troop about town to also issue fines as high as R500 to people least able to afford it. The street patrols and roadblocks set up by the police also disguise a strong xenophobic drive. Immigrants (and dark complexioned South Africans) are the almost exclusive targets of the police's attention because they are vulnerable and the police hungry for bribes. South Africa may claim to be hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup on behalf of the African continent but Joburg's preparation strategies involve deporting as many African immigrants from the country as they can fill trains to the borders with.

The Gauteng Hawkers Association was a part of the early beginnings of the APF when it was participating in the Anti-iGoli 2002 Forum. The renewed voice of hawkers in the shape of the OVOHA is welcomed by the APF. The demands we level to the City are so similar that the affinity between our struggles is unbroken. The Forum supports the hawkers' struggle for a space in the city, and more broadly for a space for the poor in the city Joburg is becoming.

Durban Street Children 

This article was originally published on page 1 of The Daily News on November 22, 2007

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20071122091820152C486964 

Where are Durban 's street children?

By Sharlene Packree and Heinz de Boer

Durban 's usually bustling street child colonies have all but disappeared from the city after what is believed to be a major police crackdown ahead of this week's Fifa preliminary draw.

City officials remain at odds over the fate of dozens of children, who are believed to have been rounded up by SAPS and Metro Police units before being taken to Westville Prison.

Social workers say this happened after the children and some adults with small children were charged for loitering and given fines they cannot afford. Some may spend up to 90 days behind bars.

City manager Dr Michael Sutcliffe has however strongly denied the allegations, saying he would "never condone" such police action.

But Metro Police spokesperson Superintendent Thozamile Tyala, confirmed that beachfront children were collected by Metro Police in a routine operation.

"We always remove the street children from the beachfront. The children were taken to a place of safety and handed over to social workers," he said.

The Daily News visited several hotspots in Mahatma Gandhi Road ( Point Road ), Addington Beach , Blue Lagoon and Central Durban where street children are usually seen. There were no children in sight in any of these areas.

There were no children begging at traffic lights or along the beachfront. Adult vagrants at Addington Beach said the children had been rounded up over the weekend and collected by Metro police vans.

A social worker, who asked not to be named out of fear of falling foul of city authorities and who works at a Durban shelter, said the children were picked up by Metro police and charged with loitering.

She said they were taken to Westville Prison.

"Hopefully this is the last time it happens. They can't keep doing this to these children. We should find a permanent solution," she said.

Sipho Mabaso, who works with street children at the Sakhisizwe Reception Centre near Margaret Mncadi Avenue (Victoria Embankment), said that on average there were 200 children living on Durban 's streets.

However, since Monday, Durban 's street children have disappeared from many of their popular city haunts.

"On average, we see about 5 or 10 children at the reception centre. I haven't seen any of these kids since Monday," he said. Mabaso said it was "very suspicious" that the children are nowhere to be seen at a time when there were international delegates and media in the city.

"Everybody knows street children are a problem in Durban . So where have they gone to suddenly?" he said. Sutcliffe has meanwhile called on people with details of forced removals to bring forward evidence.

"Dealing with street children is a social welfare issue, and the Metro Police is not involved. We as the city will never be associated with that.

"It has been an issue discussed at the Joint Operations Centre, and police have been instructed to certainly take away their glue if they are seen with it.

"Obviously there is a heightened police presence now, so the street children tend to not hang out as much," Sutcliffe said.

Durban's street wars - StreetNet International calls on Ethekwini Metro to negotiate in good faith with street vendors 25th June 2007: StreetNet International calls on the Durban Metropolitan Council to take the opportunity which has been offered to them by street vendors’ organisations.  A Platform of Demands was submitted to Acting Head of the Business Support Unit, Philip Sithole, at a meeting on the 4^th June 2007 – but has this far been ignored, resulting in violent confrontations on the streets. The intention of the Platform of Demands is to resolve the problems of regulation of street trade through negotiation and social dialogue, and to avoid further bloody street wars such as those which took place on the 18^th and 19^th June in Warwick Avenue and outside the Magistrate’s Court.

The Siyagunda Association, Phoenix Plaza Street Traders’ Association and The Eye Traders’ Association are concerned about draconian moves against street vendors intensifying in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with disastrous consequences for the livelihoods of street vendors and their families. 

The demands of the street vendors are to:

-      put in place a transparent system of regulation which is inclusive (i.e. does not criminalise the majority of the city’s 25 000 street vendors by refusing them trading permits);

-      enforce the Recommendations of a Review of Durban’s Informal Economy Policy undertaken in 2006 (which proposes that the system of regulation must cater for all street vendors, and avoid police action except as a last resort);

-      establish an independent Commission of Enquiry into all facets of corruption around the issue of street trade permits;

-      reform the Ethekwini Informal Economy Forum (EMIEF) to function as a proper negotiation forum where all stakeholders have equal rights to advance their positions – not a one-way conveyor belt for municipal officials to issue commands and instructions to street vendors.

Press Statement: Durban's street wars - StreetNet International calls on Ethekwini Metro to negotiate in good faith with street vendors (25th June 2007)  

Durban Street vendors 2007 platform of demands  

South African Railway Hawkers Association (SARHA) march-  Railway hawkers march to Pretoria to deliver memorandum to President in protest over harassment: Wednesday 16th May 2007 - SARHA demands include a moratorium on all evictions of hawkers on the railways and stadiums and places where hawkers try to make a decent living. The SARHA memorandum further demands information sharing and dialogue on the budget allocations for informal trade and disclosure on who is responsible for making decisions affecting informal trade in the country. SARHA has called for a general review of all policies affecting informal traders.   

Press Release on SARHA march to Union Building

SARHA Memorandum to President Thabo Mbeki

FNB Stadium hawkers - 2010 World Cup displaces breadwinners

Friday 11th May 2007 - 'Thabo Mbeki and overseas people will come to watch the soccer world cup and they will never buy food from you, and therefore you must go.' This is the message that the stadium hawkers were told by Grinaker LTA, a construction company charged with the redevelopment of FNB's soccer city stadium situated between Soweto and Johannesburg. 

The livelihood of the hawkers and their families is under a serious threat from the construction company. Accordingly, most of the hawkers have been selling at the stadium during soccer matches for many years. The situation changed in January this year when the soccer matches came to end as the stadium came under reconstruction. 

Since the hawkers had no where to go, they decided to sell food to the very workers doing the construction at the stadium. Surely this became a boom for the hawkers. Instead of trading only on weekends during the soccer matches, they traded every working day, selling food to the construction workers. As business was going on, the management of the construction company decided to frustrate the hawkers. They started telling hawkers that the food they sell might be unhygienic and therefore they must go. The management decided to restrict the flow of workers in and out of the work-place. All other gates of the stadium were closed, opening only one gate – the main gate. Having only 30 minutes lunch time between 12H00 and 12H30, it became increasingly difficult for the workers to enter and exit the workplace for lunch without compromising the bosses' time. 

Coupled with time restrictions, the construction company tells the hawkers that four BEE companies have been enlisted and shall sell food at the stadium within months. On hearing this sad state of affair, the leaders of the SA Rail Hawkers Association (Sarha) took the matter up with the union organising construction workers, the National Union of Mineworkers (Num). At a meeting with a NUM shopsteward (below left) the hawkers (below right) were are assured that solidarity with NUM is guaranteed. He indicated that just as the construction companies are having subcontractors assisting them, it could be advisable that even the enlisted BEE caterers subcontract the work to hawkers as well. Amandla!!!

Rustenberg Royal Bafokeng Stadium -  Hawkers demand a pro-poor 2010 By Cheche Selepe May 1, 2007: RUSTENBURG: David Mosome (above) is not just a hawker peddling hats, socks, nail-cutters and a host of other non-perishables under the bridge at the Rustenburg taxi rank. He is also chairperson at the local SA national civic association and a hawker leader. Mosome has joined the call by the local hawker organisations and the international hawker movement – StreetNet. The organisations are calling for the inclusion of the poor in the build-up to the 2010 world-cup. The city’s Royal Bafokeng Stadium is host to the 2010 soccer extravagance. The stadium is owned by presumably Africa’s richest monarch, the Royal Bafokeng reigning in the land boasting the world’s largest platinum deposits. ‘Surely, the 2010 games are an affair of the rich. What about badidi (the poor),’ questions Mosome. According to him, there has been no communication between the local organising team and the hawkers – the poor communities. Mosome says the 2010 event should not just be for the rich people. ‘The hawkers and poor people on the ground should be included in all preparations for the games.’

Klerksdorp Oppenheimer Stadium - Hawkers should benefit  By Cheche Selepe 11th May, 2007 - William Mxhakaza Mashiya (082 595-3776) (above) is the president of the United Hawkers Association in Klerksdorp, North-West province. The organisation has no office and most of its members peddle their wares just around the town-hall housing the municipal headquarters of Matlosana/Klerksdorp. He cites money problems as the impediment towards organising the hawkers beyond their current state. Klerksdorp/Matlosana forms part of the Southern district municipality that also includes Orkney – the largest mining community in the area. The Oppenheimer Stadium in Orkney will soon host some of the 2010 Fifa World Cup games. As the name suggests, the stadium is named after multi-millionaire Ernest Oppenheimer. Hope is that the games at the Oppenheimer Stadium shall not be for those like Ernest himself, but let the poor benefit.

WCCA Campaign Diary

Each meeting was preliminary to the negotiation process, in the sense that it introduced the campaign purpose and objectives, tabled the demands, and discussed a way forward for the negotiation. The WCCA delegation presented a proposal for a Stakeholders' Forum (linked to demand no 6) to serve as the basis for discussion of how to engage more systematically.

World CLASS CITIES FOR ALL (WCCA) CAMPAIGN - PRELIMINARY MEETING WITH MUNICIPALITY OF CAPE TOWN held at Cape Town Civic Centre on 8 November 2007

WORLD CLASS CITIES FOR ALL (WCCA) CAMPAIGN - MEETING with JOBURG MUNICIPALITY MEETING with JOBURG MUNICIPALITY 22 November 2007

7/8th March 2007: Johannesburg - WORLD CLASS CITIES FOR ALL (WCCA) CAMPAIGN NATIONAL CAMPAIGN MEETING at Orchidea Hotel, 90 de Korte Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg.   

Press Statement: "ON THE MOVE TO 2010: Street vendors, hawkers, unions and social movements join forces"