Group Areas Act

Healthy food is hard to come by in Cape Town’s poorer areas: how community gardens can fix that

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Supermarket, Research, Farmer, Food, City, Agriculture, Frustration, Public housing, Food security, School, Garden, Government, Group Areas Act, Cape Flats, Water, Manure, Non-governmental organization, Doctor of Philosophy, Restaurant, Soil, Education

The Cape Flats are one such area, sprawling to the east of central Cape Town.

Key Points: 
  • The Cape Flats are one such area, sprawling to the east of central Cape Town.
  • The area is home to several densely populated townships (low-income public housing estates) such as Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Langa.
  • One way in which these factors affect residents is that it’s difficult to access nutritious food.
  • Part of my PhD explored how urban community gardens could be used to improve access to nutritious food on the Cape Flats.

Gardeners’ stories

  • Supporting actors help gardeners to develop their skills, as well as providing some of the required equipment.
  • For instance, the provincial department of agriculture supports community gardens through the provision of borehole drilling, water tanks and irrigation systems.
  • For my research I visited 34 urban community gardens on the Cape Flats.
  • The soil was initially poor, so the original team of 12 worked to improve its quality, using compost and manure.

Collaboration is central

  • The food should be directed into local markets, community food kitchens, school feeding programmes, and directly to residents.
  • This ensures that urban community gardens directly contribute to the well-being and food security of the communities in which they exist.
  • It also requires research to understand local consumer perspectives, dietary habits, and challenges in accessing healthy, sustainable food.

Food justice for all


Through sustainable practices and community engagement it is possible to nurture a future in which food justice becomes a reality on the Cape Flats. Food justice is the belief that everyone should have equal access to nutritious, affordable and culturally appropriate food. It emphasises addressing social, economic and environmental factors that contribute to disparities in food access and promoting fairness in the food system.
Tinashe P. Kanosvamhira does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Peter Magubane: courageous photographer who chronicled South Africa's struggle for freedom

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, January 4, 2024
People, African National Congress, Walking, Family, Kolkata metropolitan area, Federation, Congress Alliance, Book, Woman, Movement, Government, Defiance Campaign, Chill, Student, Population, Group Areas Act, Pain, Hope, Union Buildings, Police, Common Ground, Congress, Mouth, Black, Heart, National Party, Fruit, Arrest, Abdomen, Atrocity, Knowledge, Sharpeville massacre, Apartheid, Drum, Intention, Adoption, Courage, 1956 Treason Trial, Time, Skin

The photographer suffered great losses during apartheid.

Key Points: 
  • The photographer suffered great losses during apartheid.
  • He miraculously survived being shot 17 times below the waist at the funeral of a student activist in Natalspruit in 1985.
  • Despite the pain and suffering he witnessed and experienced, Magubane’s photographs testify to the hope that is at the heart of the struggle for a just world.

Witness to momentous events

  • He not only witnessed, but also took part in, many of the most significant events in modern South African history.
  • Referred to as the “dompas”, the document was used to control and restrict the movement of black South Africans.
  • His images focusing on life in the township were later to form the subject of several of his books.
  • He soon began to work as a photographer under the tutelage of Drum’s chief photographer and picture editor, Jürgen Schadeberg.
  • the events of that day produced the picture of the funeral as one of the central iconographic emblems of the anti-apartheid struggle.
  • Her slender hands are beautiful, and their perfect smoothness accentuates the brutal rupture where her skin has been broken.

The archive

  • In 2018 his work was exhibited in a major retrospective, On Common Ground, alongside that of another renowned South African photographer, David Goldblatt.
  • He served as Nelson Mandela’s photographer from 1990 to 1994.
  • Magubane’s indomitable spirit and compassionate vision live on through his work.


Kylie Thomas ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

Author Mateu Nonyane's new book "Apartheid's Insanity and Stupidity" is a deeply personal memoir of his life and exile during the apartheid era in South Africa

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Group Areas Act, Publishing, Hampton University, Ebook, State, Apple, Government, Security Branch, Parent, Mass media, Apartheid, Book, Tax, Stupidity, Humour, Google Play, Barnes, Insurance

The reader will find the book revealing with sporadic tragedy and humor.

Key Points: 
  • The reader will find the book revealing with sporadic tragedy and humor.
  • It is based on the author's upbringing by struggling parents with many children.
  • That was one of the reasons he left the country and began life as a refugee, away from his wife and seven-year-old daughter.
  • Published by Page Publishing, Mateu Nonyane's engrossing book is an illuminating indictment of the segregationist apartheid regime in place in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.