Ntirhisano is a grassroots community center in Cape Town, fighting racism, capitalism, and sexism through mutual aid and direct action. Help us keep our doors open!
97% of €5400
€ 5252 reached in total
-666 days left
Update:
Ntirhisano is motivated to fight against the rampant discrimination based on reactionary hegemony that has made and is making many more innocent lives desperate to breathe. For this reason, we all have to challenge ourselves while fighting for freedom for all. Ntirhisano is humbled by the support it has received and continues to receive on the FireFund platform and is determined to continue with the struggles of the marginalized, poor, and working-class communities.
Goal
There are nearly 500 grassroots communities around Cape Town, affected by apartheid spatial housing. As a result, many are very far away from the city. In-person contact with these communities is crucial for organizing, supporting, spontaneous and emergency response and to accomplish this mission Ntirhisano needs 2000 euros to buy a motorbike for the organizer. Because the public transport system is increasingly inconvenient, limiting, unreliable, expensive, and dangerous. The collapse of the train system has exacerbated these problems.
1. goal:: €5400
Next goal:: €7500
Ntirhisano Community Centre (NCC) is a grassroots political movement operating on the principles of voluntary cooperation, direct action, and mutual aid. Ntirhisano Community Centre (NCC) is located on Albert Road in Salt River, Cape Town. After the Apartheid government bulldozed District Six in the 1950s and 1960s: Salt River remained the neighborhood-like enclave where people of colour lived side by side. Albert Road became a symbol of resilience, a reincarnation of the District Six’s popular culture of resistance. Workers from nearby industries, primarily textile, and their families flocked to Albert Road to buy goods and for recreational activities. They came from across apartheid’s black-only designated areas. Tragically Salt River was devastated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s structural adjustment program in the 1980s. This led to labor flexibility, the casualization of workers, and the collapse of the Cape Town textile industry. Today Salt River is home to many people from around the continent, and the spirit of struggle endures. It is this spirit which Ntirhisano Community Centre seeks to support
Why
Ntirhisano is a Xitsonga/Shangaan word meaning working together. Naming the community centre Ntirhisano seeks to bridge geographic, linguistic, and political divides. What is more, it seeks to recognize the migration of language, people, and culture and to build the culture of “working together” between oppressed groups — of which Cape Town has a rich history — while demanding self-determination. This requires efforts aimed at changing the current sociopolitical inequalities and replacing them with that of a free and equal society for all. An unbiased integration of natural sciences with the arts and politics is essential in sharpening our ideas in this mission. In the same light, the struggle against human oppression is part of everyday life, not an event.
How
NCC has committed itself to respecting and advancing this long-enduring solidarity against systems of oppression with consideration, care, and sensitivity. Ntirhisano is rekindling and igniting multiple layers within the social consciousness. This is done through a variety of means including reading, holding debates and discussions, art, events, organizing, gardening, visiting communities, learning activities, and listening and sharing grassroots experiences. We believe these activities will resonate in many directions. In finding ways to participate in communities where people have always taken care of one another through many years, generations and journeys of oppressions. These memories are key in interpreting the ongoing stubbornness why many more lives are subjected to destitution, pain, sorrow and death.
15 January 2022, (L-R) Mzamani aka Phillip, Ben Verghese, Christiana Kambinga, Sam Ivey, Gedion Andeka, John Ngoyi, Abdura Ahman (floor sitting) Masika Mahamba Sakina (back), Elizabeth Abiola(middle), Andrea Abiola (3), Simire Zawadi, Natalia Aron, Papa Mudiba, Mama Daram and Kabanga Nadine Nkurikiye. Community meeting at the refugee encampment located on unused government-owned land at the Wingfield Military Base in Kensington, Cape Town on Saturday. The land is under the department of public works jurisdiction. The encampment is adjacent to the informal settlement occupied primarily by landless South African. Both the encampment and the informal settlement are along Voortrekker Road, a name that symbolizes the former Nationalist Boer regime. The road has since subverted its original intention of enforcing apartheid - discrimination against people of colour. Against all odds, black poor people from across Africa and Asia are striving to make a living on this road. As it runs through numerous business districts previously meant for whites, where blacks were not allowed.(L-R) Mzamani Nyalungu, Gisele M.M, Simire Zawadi, Julie Ombaro, Sam Ivey, Zainabu Donatien, and Sakina Mahamba. Mothers from the refugee camp at Ntirhisano.Tuesday, 05 April 2022. Salt River community meeting organized by Salt River Heritage Society, around how the land they have leased would be used. People discussed the possibilities of gardening, a market, and recreational activities. Saturday 16 April 2022(L-R) Lutfi Omar, Josephine de klerk, Grace Bangula, Ahmad Johardien, Jos van veen, Waseela Everson and Koni Benson. Meeting between Salt River Heritage Society (SRHS), Ntirhisano, and Children’s Movement. Josephine from the Children’s Movement is presenting the reusable sanitary pads which they make themselves whilst teaching people to sew on Saturday, 16 April 2022.
97% of €5400
€ 5252 reached in total
-666 days left
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