The voice of the community

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Community service forums: a voice for the community?

This session was chaired by Nkwame Cedile from Khayelitsha in Cape Town. This session was very interactive and he opened the floor to participants to share their experiences around community development forum. We had a fruitful discussion around the following:

Who forms this kind of structure? Who should be represented here?
The roles and functions of those people?
How should this work with other structures and how does it effectively work with the government?
Who elects the forum and how big should it be?

Experiences were shared from various communities, where an example from Kwamakhutha Community Centre was shared and the successes and challenges highlighted. A common challenge amongst most of us was that the community development structures are functional for only a certain period of time after which they become politicised e.g. those who sit within these forums then seek and find employment within the government, which is clearly politically driven.

Some of the challenges highlighted and which we felt that we should address included:

The ability (or lack thereof) to separate politics from development and also to find a way in which we can be part of the solution by using politics to enhance development.
Working and engaging with local structures, which can sometimes be limiting especially if there are too many structures in power e.g. indunas vs local government
Politics; sometimes we can’t get ahead because the political figures and other people in the community want to know “who are you and what is your claim to fame?”

As a group, we tried to look at possible solutions and a way forward. Some of the suggestions included:

It is always important to do some kind of baseline study so that you know the community that you are dealing with
Forums and organizations need to work together in order to minimize duplication of services
Communities must always be involved and form a part of the community development forum as they also need to own the process
Civil Society are part of the community and the government and we all need to bear that in mind
Engage everyone, no matter how small the grouping
Know the politics and the proper procedures so that you can be able to hold those in charge accountable
NGOs should be political without being swallowed by party politics.

it was very interesting to see that our communities, no matter how diverse, have some commonalities.

signing out...

Rhulani Lehloka