GREENVILLE GARDEN CITY’S POSITIVE EFFECT
ALREADY BEING FELT BY LOCAL COMMUNITY
Fisantekraal residents employed in building and upgrades
2016
Destined to eventually accommodate 16 000 households across the economic spectrum, Greenville Garden City the new suburb at Fisantekraal, has already started to have a positive impact on the residents of the surrounding area.
At the start, developerGarden Cities is providing Breaking New Ground (BNG) houses that will be owned and occupied by validated beneficiaries of state housing subsidies, who are given the opportunity to choose from completed units. Many owners are being drawn from the residents of the Fisantekraal informal settlement.
Some local residents are already benefiting from the development in the form of employment in construction and in work cleaning and clearing the surrounding land and rivers of debris and discarded material. Further afield,formerly unskilled and unemployed people are producing the blocks used to build the houses.
Group CEO of Garden Cities, John Matthews says the construction of Greenville will not only provide accommodation, but will play a part in uplifting the peoplewho live there. A large proportion of the houses will be for residents who have previously lived only in informal settlements, or as backyard dwellers.And for most, it will be the first home they own.
Garden Citiesrecognises, and is servicing its obligation to train and employ local labour, and the trendis also abroad in the wider constituency of Fisantekraal. Prominent among those generating a community spirit is local tenant farmer, Duncan Stephenson, of Patrysfontein– a farm leased from Garden Cities. Concerned about the pollution of the Mosselbank River, a major watercourse in Fisantekraal, Stephensonhas undertaken at his own cost to employ teams of local residents to clean the river and surrounding bush, with great success.
‘Because the fallout of debris from the informal settlement is enormous, strewn garbage and dangerous items such as hypodermic needles and used condoms create a danger for the children who play in the river,’ says Stephenson.
Under controlled and safe conditions, teams are able to maintain regular clearing. The work includes removal of alien vegetation and household refuse that has attracted rats and snakes that prey on them.
A scout and a supervisor in radio contact accompany the teams comprising15 to 20 women from the settlement. Each cleanup yields about three and a half tons of material once a month in summer and every two months in winter.
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On the Greenville Garden Cityconstruction site there are 60 workers recruited from theFisantekraal informal and formal settlement. Of those employed, 90% were unskilled, and had never worked before, which makes training a crucial component of their employment. Members of the local Fisantekraal community are first in line for jobs.
All those appointed are registered with the Building Industry’s Bargaining Council and receive benefits accordingly: pension/provident fund, and holiday/bonus fund.
The formal recruitment process includes community members being registered on the City of Cape Town’s database, from which names and contact details are obtained. The same database is used to recruit employees for subcontractors working on the site. The Department of Labour’sfree ESSA service is also used to shortlist candidates from Fisantekraal area.
A Community Liaison Officerregisters unemployed community member walk-ins on the database. Last year, community member conducted a skills audit and this has also been used in the recruitment process.Vacancies are advertised in community centres and spaza shops.
Houses at Greenville are being built with a revolutionary new material, Benex blocks, which can be made and used in construction by relatively low-skilled labour.
TheBenex Factory currently has 30 full time employees. All are permanently employed and also form part of the Building Industry Bargaining Council. As such, they earn according to the agreed wage scales.
Of the workers, 25% of whom are women, most are from nearby communities to the Benex’s Epping factory. While a few are from Fisantekraal, very infrequent transport has made employing more people from there challenging. All but four of the employees are under 25 and have never before worked in permanent jobs. ‘In fact,’ says Benex Cape MD Tony Marsh,‘most have not been able to find work since leaving school.’
Training is done in-house for most of the jobs, but specialist training, like that of a forklift driver, is done by external training centres. Those employed as block installers and assistant block installers are trained at Benex, as well as those who make the adhesives, painters, assistants to plumbers and cleaners.
Early this year, six employee volunteers will attend scaffolding training, four will attend First Aid courses, and two will be trained in firefighting and snake handling.