The call for nominations for the next round of the Investing in the Future and Drivers of Change Awards was a reminder of Asiye eTafuleni’s (AeT) recognised significance as a contributor to systemic change.

Under the compelling article title above, AeT was solely profiled as winners of the Civil Society Award 2011 in the Mail & Guardian edition April 26 to May 3, 2012 on page 7. AeT’s work was exemplified with the call for nominations of promising individuals and organisations for this year’s awards.

The article notes, “…Through its innovative work in the Warwick Avenue market area in Durban, South Africa, Asiye eTafuleni is a driver for systemic change towards more inclusive cities across the Southern African region. The initiative exemplifies higher level partnerships that work for the benefit of vulnerable groups at a very local level, the judges said when they gave Asiye eTafuleni the Drivers of Change award in the Civil Society category.”

The precursor to the call for nominations is an article by Neville Gabrielle (Executive Director of the Southern Africa Trust and member of the panel of judges for the awards) titled “By Africa for Africa”, who writes, “Africa is changing. There are signs of new energies, interests, actors and wealth. Yet underdevelopment, inequality and exclusion persist. Old practices, relationships and frameworks of social investment can no longer contain these contradictions. We must imagine new ways of doing things in a changed context and we must prove that they can be done if we want to remain relevant and effective as doers of growth and development…”

He adds, “…The Drivers of Change awards, in partnership with the Mail & Guardian’s Investing in the Future awards, recognise those who are doing just that. The game changers in social investment, philanthropy and development are the rightful recipients of these awards…”

As Mr Gabrielle has highlighted above, the profiling of initiatives is critical for stimulating systemic changes. Therefore, the likes of these prestigious awards are invaluable if these innovative ideas and strategies are to become normative. AeT prides itself in being associated with a network of like-minded agents of change.

One of the earliest meetings with the newly formed Palmer Street Recyclers Working Committee at the Priority Zone Offices

Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) has been working closely with two groups of inner-city cardboard recyclers on the Imagine Durban Cardboard Recycling Project since 2009. One of the groups in Palmer Street consists of both male and female recyclers. Through the project process, it became increasingly significant that many of the men recyclers struggle with social issues such as homelessness and substance abuse. Some of these men are rehabilitated ex-convicts while others are recurring crime offenders.

Through progressive engagement with the project, including monthly meetings facilitated by AeT, the recyclers organised themselves as a working committee. Here, they realised that having the recurring crime offenders in the group was jeopardising the success of the project. Consequently, a code of conduct for the workplace was developed to manage the more difficult members; with a system of issuing warnings, dispute resolution through impartial mediation and finally being removed as a Project participant if the offender in question showed no sign of redress.

Nicholas Mahlangu one of the hardworking men recyclers based in Palmer Street

These decisions have been jointly developed and implemented by the recycling community, AeT project facilitators and the immense support of representatives from the Priority Zone (a facilities management company working for the City government) and UNISA’s Bright Site project. The main reason for the code of conduct was to ensure better urban management and a safer working environment for everyone interfacing with the public work place, not only the recyclers, but also the passing pedestrians and surrounding businesses.

On 2nd of March 2012, two different criminal incidents affecting the Palmer Street cardboard recycling community unfolded. The most recent was the case of a project trolley being taken by force by an “expelled” member of the Project. As project participant, Musa, was about to sell his cardboard at a buy-back centre, he was robbed of his trolley and its contents at knife-point by the expelled member who was assisted by other intimidators. A distraught Musa informed Maria, a nominated leader of the recycling community, who in turn called AeT’s Senior Project Officer, Patric Ndlovu for assistance. Patric advised Musa to open a charge of armed robbery against the suspect, seeing as there were a number of eye-witnesses during the incident.

One of the monthly meetings held at Priority Zone

Going the extra mile, Patric accompanied Musa to the South African Police Service (SAPS) to provide a detailed account of the incident, including providing pictures of the stolen trolley and the suspect. Thereafter, they went to a number of Buy-Back centres to alert the “middle-agents” about the stolen trolley and the suspect. To Patric’s complete surprise, he encountered the suspect at one of the Buy-Back centres, who promptly admitted his guilt on hearing that there are eye-witnesses that will testify against him about the armed robbery. The suspect assured that he would bring the trolley back by the end of the week.

A police officer then accompanied Patric and Musa back to Palmer Street to verify the details of the case. Here, they had a second encounter with another expelled member, this time a murder suspect, who by his own admission and verified by eye-witnesses, severely assaulted a fellow male recycler (who later died) back in November 2011.

It was because of the concerted effort from the project participants of the Palmer Street recycling community and Patric that the case was established and the necessary information was conveyed to the police regarding the details of the murder. This included connecting the eye-witnesses on scene to the police, and also eventually conveying the bad news to the deceased man’s family, three months after his murder. To everyone’s dismay the impending arrest of the murder suspect had been delayed due to the lack of prioritisation of the case by the investigating officer in charge. However, having a new officer at hand for another case altogether provided the ideal moment to have the murder suspect arrested and handed over to the SAPS, where he was detained and finally charged.

The Palmer Street recyclers with the project trolleys and aprons

The Palmer Street Recyclers were relieved to see the murder suspect finally charged, feeling uneasy about his occasional and unwelcome presence in the area. This is after seeing him being released from several serious charges and hearing him boast that he is invincible against the law. Interestingly, the murder suspect admitted his guilt and cooperated throughout the process of the arrest and charging, even after being told that he is likely to face life imprisonment for murder.

Due to the recycling community and Patric’s active involvement in these cases, it was emphasised that ensuring justice was served, was not about personal vendettas against the “expelled” individuals. As project participant Musa shared his thoughts with everyone in isiZulu, saying that: “You have to pay for your sins while you’re still on this earth, because in the next life, there is no redemption”, he jokingly added, “There, you will only roast in the fire like braai meat (barbeque)”. The recyclers expressed immense gratitude for AeT and Priority Zone’s help in dealing with the two criminal incidents.

A group photo of the Palmer Street recyclers during COP 17 last year

In conclusion, the workplace code of conduct has further empowered the Palmer Street recyclers with maintaining a safer work environment in their local community – on seeing that the police and justice system have seemingly failed them on occasions. At the macro-level however, these accounts highlight positive outcomes with respects to resolving criminal justice events without inadvertently forcing the community to take law into their own hands, or becoming apathetic about justice being served.

Furthermore, it has highlighted how the AeT staffs’ multidisciplinary skill sets come to good use in the most surprising ways sometimes. For instance, in the way Senior Project Officer of AeT and ex-Metro police officer, Patric Ndlovu, unwittingly puts on his policing shoes now and again for the cause. Click here  to read another story of AeT’s unique involvement in resolving another incident of crime.

Reflecting on her experience of the Markets of Warwick Junction on 17 April 2012, Saffron Baggallay shares some very perceptive thoughts on the role of the informal economy on TomorrowToday’s blog. She writes:

Bead Seller from the Bead Market

“…Whilst I was wondering around this magical place, contemplating all that I was learning about myself by spending time with these remarkable vendors and their remarkable stories, I wondered what a place like Warwick represented for the future of business, most specifically big conglomerates and multi-national corporations. Warwick embodies for me the best aspects of the new world of work, in that its survival is reliant on collaboration, trust, respect, hard work, networking, team-work, good leadership, humility, creativity, innovation, market responsiveness…

…This experience illustrated so many important things for me. One of the things I thought of is the potential interplay between the formal and informal business sectors in to the future. In 2008 the world tipped from being primarily rural to being primarily urban. Cities are growing rather than getting smaller. This must mean that governments, big business and social practices generally are going to shift and change to accommodate new ways of over-populated urban living.

What Warwick illuminated for me was the need to consider now what the future holds for the informal business sector in relation to the formal business sector. I think there will come a time in the future where the formal sector will learn from the informal and I definitely think that there will come a time where they will both have to work collaboratively.

If one considers which cities are predicted to grow most in the next 15 years, most are cities in developing economies that have historically had a proportionately large informal business sector. I think that because of this historic behaviour, because of the disillusionment with big business and the system (embodied in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall street), because of a skills deficit that the world is facing amongst the youth and because of the formal sector not being able to create jobs fast enough, the informal sector (illustrated by Warwick) will play increasingly significant roles in the global economy…”

To read the full blog, click here.

The AeT Team presenting at KZNIA offices

Reported by Tasmi Quazi

On the 4th of April 2012, Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) with the support of the KwaZulu-Natal Institute of Architects (KZNIA) conducted a day-long course including an exposure tour of Warwick Junction, based on the subject “Designing with Informal Workers Utilising Public Spaces”. This was an exclusive course for architects, urban designers and planners, which also earned the participants professional CPD points.

The course attracted just over 20 architects, mainly from the city government’s Architects Unit and architectural students from as far as Johannesburg and Bloemfontein. A power-point presentation was made at KZNIA by the entire staff component of AeT based on their specific areas of expertise. This was also in accordance with AeT’s multidisciplinary approach to working with the informal economy encompassing; research, social facilitation and technical design. This approach was applied to different architectural and urban design typologies in the realm of infrastructural provision for and with the informal economy, and included sector support strategies:

1) Specialist facilities i.e. Food cooks as mealie and bovine head cooks

2) Inner-city Recyclers i.e. Detail design for equipment and urban design infrastructure

3) Culturally responsive infrastructure, e.g. Herb, Lime & Impepho Markets

4) Mixed-use vending infrastructural support e.g. Retail, storage and public amenities

5) Sector Support Strategies: Law programme, after-care of infrastructure and community-based tourism project

The Exposure Tours of Warwick Junction

Click here for a more elaborated description of the programme . The course was designed to be interactive and it was during the discussion sessions in which compelling comments and queries were posed by the participants to the AeT panel regarding the various presentations. For instance, a discussion related to understanding the appropriate level of interventionism which does not disturb the inherent logic, essence and system of an informal activity. Another recurring discussion was around the critical importance of a collaborative urban management strategy with continuous after-care support from relevant city departments, which otherwise leads to not only deteriorating and hazardous urban conditions for informal workers and their consumers – but also to prejudiced perceptions of the informal economy as chaotic, and the site of crime and grime. In addition, a challenge posed by a participant was that the presentations revealed the systematic ways in which informal workers operate which is akin to formal business systems, and hence it was suggested that the reference to “informal work” should more correctly be “own account workers”.

In conclusion, as a result of the development and knowledge vacuum around urban design and planning considerations for and with the informal economy, this course formed a critical component of AeT’s learning hub strategy in stimulating much-needed debate and discourse amongst architects, urban designers and planners. The principles and theories raised by the presentation was grounded by the reference and exposure to the practical experiences from the “promising” or “better” practices emanating from the Warwick Junction project and from AeT’s emerging work. These were some of the reflections from the participants after the day-long experience of the course and exposure tour:

“This is a very important course and more professionals from the architectural fraternity need to be exposed to it. It needs to travel regionally to other centres within KZN”

The concluding discussion at AeT's offices

“It is incredible to have learnt that there are so many layers and nuances to the way informal workers operate within their particular sectors and just how integrated and nuanced AeT’s approach and responses are”

“Now that we have been exposed to the fundamental principles of designing with informal workers utilising public spaces, we need a follow-up course that delves even deeper into the dynamics of the theories and practices raised.”

To view more pictures of the course and exposure tour, click here. If you are interested in viewing the power-point presentation, email tasmi@aet.org.za.

In celebration of World Architecture Day on 15 November 2011, Architects’ Collective hosted the South African Informal City (SAIC) exhibition and seminar, at the Bus Factory in Newtown, Johannesburg. The exhibition was on view from 11 November till 11 December 2011.

The Brook Street Market featured in the SAIC exhibition as part of Inner City Informality

The initiative was created to showcase South Africa’s most relevant and innovative projects that explore informality in the modern metropolis. This was aimed at sharing information and positive action around the critical issues of informality and urban development amongst policy makers, practitioners and academics involved in this realm.

Moreover, it was initiated as an effort to address the lack of recognition, discourse and debate around the role of urban design in poverty alleviation. For more information about the motivation behind the project read an article written by Karen Eicker (16) in the January/February 2012 edition of the Journal of the South African Institute of Architects, Architecture South Africa.

The showcased work explored the themes: Inner City Informality; In Situ Upgrading; Catalytic Projects; Un-built Projects; and Backyard Interventions. Under the theme Inner City Informality, the Herb Market and Brook Street Markets were featured, courtesy of Andrew Makin Architect and Architects Collaborative respectively. In addition, AeT has facilitated the provision of photographic images of the informal economy of Warwick Junction from the book ‘Working in Warwick’ and was an invited speaker at the Seminar. The SAIC exhibition is the fifth exhibition in which the ‘Working in Warwick’ photography collection has been featured, see here. To view more images of the SAIC exhibition, click here.

The Seminar

The one-day programme for the seminar covered four themes Place; Movement; Opportunity and Engagement. During the opening speech, Mr Sithole from the South African Cities Network said that “…Informality is negated and ostracised, not seen as part of the city, it has become about ‘dealing’ with it – instead of managing, supporting and embracing it…” He added that the key challenge is to reconfigure our cities and the meaning of informality so that it is embraced. AeT’s Richard Dobson spoke under the theme of Movement and based on the experiences gained in the area of urban design implementation with informal workers, he highlighted FIVE indicative lessons:

1) Location: Informal workers are often pioneer feasibility writers because they are trying to impress themselves and their needs in viable places. (This was echoed by Edmund Elias, the Chairperson of the South African Traders Retail Alliance who emphasised that informal traders have a significant contribution to make to urban renewal initiatives. He elaborated that in planning exercises, the urban logic of informal traders are not recognised and in fact undermined and prejudiced by officials and development practitioners.)

2) Healing: South African cities have not realised that they have been deprived of an integrated presence of its people. Although we may have a rainbow nation, our cities need to reflect this.

3) Carrying capacity: In most of these areas, communities are making sophisticated calls regarding densities in public spaces, product mix and transactional methods.  These often result in a dynamic threshold being reached which suggest that we should become more courageous and let some of these thresholds develop more organically to see how they play out.

4) Transport Interface: Characteristically in the South African context, the concentration of public transport provide ideal locations for informal workers. It therefore implies that there is direct synergy between a developmental approach in support of informal workers and the optimal design and location of public transport.

5) Process: The Durban Council adopted an area-based approach to the regeneration programme as a multi-disciplinary team that did the primary interfacing. However, it became undergirded by substantial stakeholder commitment and participation in a broader participatory effort. This was echoed by audience members that pointed the need for integrated development that is cross-sectoral involving economic development, tourism and transportation – along with housing to holistically support informality.

The Herb Market featured in the SAIC exhibition as part of Inner-city Informality

For the summary of the day-long seminar, download the The South African Informal City Exhibition & Seminar (21). In conclusion, in light of the development vacuum of research and practice within the realm of informality, the exhibition and seminar was pioneering for its focus. What was even more encouraging was the consensus that informality is a permanent urban phenomenon which should not be viewed as a problem, but as part of the solution to strategizing integrated responses; encompassing research, urban design and social engagement. This echoes AeT’s organisational practice which brings both technical expertise and social facilitation skills in order to work with urban informal workers in co-developing their working environments, and which is inclusive of relevant city departments and practitioners.

by Tasmi Quazi

Informal Recycler Afrika Ntuli doing the toi-toi dance to show his solidarity for Global Recyclers Day

Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) has had experience working with informal recyclers operating from public spaces, and since 2009, has been working closely with two groups of inner-city cardboard recyclers on the Cardboard Recycling Project.

This is a city government commission awarded to AeT to implement strategies which improve the livelihood prospects of cardboard recyclers. Consequently through this Project, it has become clear that beyond the obvious benefits of informal recycling as a low-barrier job that is accessible to the most marginalized individuals in society and its contribution to keeping urban spaces clean; it is a prime example of a green economy job.

With changing global priorities and a growing pressure to significantly increase recycling rates and find new and innovative ways of using waste, there is an opportunity to transform the status and perception of informal recyclers. Accordingly, for AeT, Global Recyclers’ Day is an important opportunity to highlight the valuable contributions of informal recyclers to the environment and urban economies.

These comments are what some of Durban’s inner-city informal recyclers had to say about Global Recyclers’ day on 1 March 2012:

Informal Recyclers Afrika Ntuli & Vicoria Bubu showing solidarity for Global Recyclers Day

“I am grateful, feel respected and honoured, and I feel happy to know that at the global level, recyclers are united! Informal recycling is an important sector to the formally unemployed because we earn a living which helps to support our families. We not only contribute to sustaining nature, but also the economy of our country. We should all be given the respect we deserve and it is also an opportunity to thank the businesses and people that let us remove their waste. They should continue supporting us in this system!” Afrika Ntuli

“Meeting other informal recyclers from around the world during COP 17 and Global Recyclers’ Day shows me that we are being recognised world-wide and that our challenges are universal. It is also an incentive for me to continue working hard in this job.” Victoria Bubu

“To me being part of the international delegation of recyclers at COP 17 and Global Recyclers’ Day means that as recyclers we are increasingly being treated as humans, and as humans with rights.” Musa Khoza

In celebration of Global Recyclers’ Day, Informal Recycler and leader of the Palmer Street Recyclers decided to set a record for the most amount of cardboard sold by a recycler in a day. This entailed the selling of 25 bundles amounting to just over 1 tonne!  Helping him in this mammoth task of weighing these cardboard bundles were his collegues Nicholas Mhlangu and Maria Vilakazi who also sold their cardboard. Altogether close to 1.5 tonnes of salvaged cardboard was sold this morning by these three recyclers only.  To view pictures of this special event in honour of Global Recyclers’ Day, click here.

The Markets of Warwick was featured in a local newspaper, the Berea Community, on 28 October 2011. The journalist encourages the public to embrace the experience, saying:

Warwick Junction is a fascinating place and the public are invited to experience it…Schools and the public are encouraged to go along and find out more about this fascinating space in the heart of Durban…

Warwick Junction is unique and is the only location of markets of this magnitude, and with a diversity not seen anywhere else in South Africa.

To learn more about the Markets of Warwick, visit the website. To view pictures of the nearly 2000 visitors that have embraced the experience since the 2010 FIFA World Cup when the project was initiated by the informal trading community, find “Markets of Warwick” on Facebook.

If you need no further motivation, then you can make a booking through 031 3093880 or through the Markets of Warwick website.

Article from Berea Community newspaper

Maria photographed by AeT intern Dennis Stols

On observing informal cardboard recycler Maria Vilakazi at her workplace, Journalist Pralini Naidoo has written a fascinating article for the environmental magazine, the Green Times on 10th February 2012. Maria is a participant of the Imagine Durban Cardboard Recycling Project which has been implemented by Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) for just over 2 years.

Pralini describes Maria’s working environment and includes interviews with and photographs from AeT staff. Pralini says, “Her territory is a labyrinth of hidden refuse rooms bathed in charcoal light. Masterfully she flattens a mountain of discarded cardboard boxes into an efficient bundle. Later she will haul her treasure to a buyer a few roads away and earn her income for the day.

…We used to be chased by policemen, and we had to hide our trolleys”, says Maria. That was before the assistance of Asiye Etafuleni, an NPO who together with Imagine Durban and Sustainable Cities, Canada, have been trying to improve the conditions of informal recyclers. “Our long term plan is to change the infrastructure of the city to incorporate the informal recyclers by providing specific collection areas” says Tasmi Quazi who facilitates this project. “Urban design and planning needs to proactively accommodate informal workers”.”

Based on her personal experience of interviewing and observing Maria work she adds: “Meeting Maria is a total eye-opener for me. Despite her 12 hour, seven day week and a host of tragedies including the deaths of five of her six children, in Maria there remains a strength of character and maternal wisdom which makes her a natural leader.”

For the full article, click here. Furthermore, to view a photographic essay of Maria’s working life, click here.

The images of the ‘Working in Warwick’ exhibition were taken by the internationally renowned Architectural Photographer, Dennis Gilbert. This vibrant library of images is also published in the book ‘Working in Warwick: Including Street Traders in Urban Plans’, co-authored by Asiye eTafuleni’s (AeT) Richard Dobson and Caroline Skinner. The motivation behind the exhibition was to capture the history and the endemic energy of informal activities in public spaces of Warwick Junction, by optimizing the power of photographic record.

However, this was implemented as a unique joint product, combining a book launch and exhibition as a tool for dissemination. As one stakeholder elaborated:

…the book was driven by the need to disseminate the message that INCLUSIVE CITIES REDUCE POVERTY, ARE POSSIBLE, AND NEEDED NOW and WIEGO identified Warwick Junction as a good example of what is possible. It was recognised that there was an urgent need for documentation of the experience of Warwick, and the book is a treasure.

The images are particularly striking due to their large scale and artistry, which an organiser explained:

We deliberately printed very large scale images which are seldom seen except in billboard advertising. We deliberately did this to create a strikingly different notion of informal work, by inducing an aesthetic jolt… Many people do not recognise informal work, however the technical proficiency used in the photographers’ images served to re-examine the informal work of the people. Subsequently, we used high quality material and large size images to elevate the images to a highly aesthetic realm, with the aim of conscientising and underlining that informal work is significant and important…

These were some of the public responses about the exhibition:

‘…The exhibition was a mirror image of what I had lived through most of my life – but in print form, and the book was an emotional experience for me. I was overwhelmed by the photography and like many others, I bought the book and we would not have done this unless it meant a lot to us.’ (Shop owner in the Warwick Area)

‘…The format, quality and content are professionally done. It shows reality without romanticising it. The photographs are not contrived images, they are real. They are presented in sequence and as a whole you get to appreciate the sense of pride in informal workers, and thereby you get to understand how they continue to work day in and day out to eek out livelihoods and support their families.’ (Book retailer & assistant at the opening function)

‘The book and exhibition was stunning and vivid and conveyed the essence of the dynamics of the Warwick area.’ (Architect)

‘The photos were fantastic, of the same class and professional quality as any other type of exhibition. Just because the subject matter is the informal economy, it was not of any lower standard and I appreciated that.’ (Architect & NGO professional)

To read more, click here to download The Close-Out Report (74) which elaborates the motivations of the exhibition and book launch, including a technical review, the public responses and media coverage received, and key learnings of this project.

However, the ‘Working in Warwick’ exhibition first featured within a prominent Architectural firm’s office display, Allies and Morrison, located near the famous Art Museum, Tate Britain, during March 2008. Click here to view The Flyer (72) and Narrative Document (77) of this event. To view more images from London, click here .

Allies & Morrison window display in London

Thereafter the book and exhibition was first launched in South Africa at Durban’s Art Gallery during June 2009. To see more on the process of installation and the opening launch (31).

Exhibition and book launch in Durban

The Exhibition next travelled to Cape Town during February 2010, hosted by African Centre for Cities. Click here for the photographic report of the launching event (36) which coincided with two other book launches as part of a week-long symposium. To read more on this event, click here.

Exhibition travels to Cape Town

Thereafter the exhibition again travelled abroad during November 2011, but this time to Belo Horizonte, Brazil as part of one of  WIEGO’s public events hosted by the School of Fine Art at the University Federal of Minas Gerais. To view more images from the opening launch of this event, click here.

Exhibition and book travel to Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Other exhibitions that have featured images from the collection include the 2010 Shanghai Expo as organised by the South African Institute of Architects and the “Design with the Other 90%” Exhibition in New York during October 2010-January 2012.

Design with the Other 90 percent, the organisers selected an image of the Early Morning Market as the central iconic piece

Last but not least, the exhibition travelled to Johannesburg as part of the South African Informal City, at the Bus Factory in Newtown, on view from 11 November till 11 December 2011. For this event, AeT had facilitated the provision of photographic images from the ‘Working in Warwick’ collection and was an invited speaker at the associated Seminar. Click here to view more images from this event.

Exhibition goes to Johannesburg's South African Informal City Exhibition

In conclusion, the feedback from the exhibition and book launch evaluation revealed a consensus that the outcomes exceeded expectations; in terms of the quality, the high numbers of visitors at the gallery and the book sales made. The fact that the exhibition is traveling nationally and internationally is testament to the increasing interest in this collection of images of Warwick Junction. It has been widely expressed that the exhibition has been an innovative and effective tool for the dissemination of the need to re-vision more inclusive city-making. Also, it has served to stimulate better interactions of a wide cross section of people across professions, races and classes through the mediums of high end-art and readership.

AeT's Phumzile Xulu & Richard Dobson with Informal Recycler Maria Vilakazi

An important component of Asiye eTafuleni’s (AeT) research methodology includes getting our hands down and dirty through practical work experience and observation exercises of informal workers in their working environments. This is aimed at building a grounded understanding of the working dynamics which ultimately inform potential design interventions. Secondly, this assists in building a working relationship with the community who are seen as co-developers of potential interventions for their working environments.

For the Imagine Durban Inner-city Cardboard Recycling project, the entire AeT team joined informal recyclers operating from Palmer Street for a four and a half hour collection round. AeT’s Richard Dobson and Phumzile Xulu were partnered with informal recycler, Maria Vilakazi. At some point during the collection round, Richard and Phumzile were seen opening green bins to salvage cardboard and Richard whimsically reflected the surprised looks of “white” drivers observing him from their cars probably thinking “…wow we know that the economic recession is bleak, but it must be bad if a “white” man is digging in the bins”. This clearly highlighted the stigma attached to this informal activity, which however provides a valuable service to recycling in the city and is increasingly becoming important within a green economy strategy.

Informal Recycler Balisile Msomi gracefully piling a cardboard bundle at Boxer Superstores refuse area

Subsequent to these experiences, AeT’s intern Dennis-Lee Stols and Tasmi Quazi have been conducting observation exercises with informal recyclers which have been captured as a series of photographic essays on the working lives of specific informal recyclers as Menzi Dlamini, Musa Khoza, Afrika Ntuli, Maria Vilakazi and Balisile Msomi.

This methodology has also enabled great opportunities for hearing remarkable and inspiring stories of the working and personal lives of the informal workers, including identifying supportive people from formal businesses and the general public. For instance, informal recycler Balisile Msomi told us how grateful she is to the supermarket, Boxer Superstores in West Street for enabling her to collect cardboard for the last 3 years. Her primary income comes from recycling the cardboard she collects from Boxer and while she waits for the “middle-agent” to collect her cardboard, she makes and sells beaded jewellery. She added that the Boxer management care for her better than their own staff, whereby they get concerned if she ever falls ill and where they have assigned her a set of keys to the bin area.

AeT's Patric Ndlovu & Phumzile Xulu on a work experience session with a Pine Street Informal Recycler

Previously unemployed and on seeking independence from her controlling husband, she chose to recycle cardboard as a livelihood strategy for the last six years to support four dependents. She was compelled into this livelihood after seeing that her sister and other women in her community managed to independently build their own houses and buy groceries from the income earned from cardboard recycling. On being asked whether she would consider any other kind of work, she said:

If I have to, I will consider other work but only where I can be my own boss and where I can be in charge and work for myself as I do now.

This statement is revealing in that there are various motivations that compel informal workers to practice their livelihoods, beyond merely being a survivalist strategy. More traditional research methods would have reduced rich stories as these to hard facts and statistics which are useful. However, the work of these communities largely remains invisible and utilising a narrative approach is foregrounding not only the statistics, but also their rich contribution to inner-city life.