Teach informal settlers the ways and responsibilities of urban living.

Solutions to social problems, within our society,  may require a psychological analysis into the nature and/or the reason for the problem. 

A breakdown in communication may need to be addressed.

For instance; before flush toilets are installed or houses built, 

educate the users on how to maintain the toilets.

Make sure that the community has a maintenance team to handle repairs and cleaning.

Communities who are unwilling to learn how to maintain an infrastructure (like toilets) may have to be satisfied with alternatives - like long drops until they can organize themselves.

Alternatively, ask the community to come up with a solution. to their problem.

The same applies to receiving houses or schools and libraries.   Structures that are vandalized should not be re-built by the government.   Repairs should be the responsibility of the community, responsibility because they allowed it to happen.

Political parties should support each other in this respect for the sake of the people.

30% of programs on open television should be of a social educational nature.

People living in cities should learn bush-sense and people in informal settlements should learn

the responsibilities of city living.

A man's house is his castle

In upmarket neighborhoods, small families experience the need to expand their homes.

Politicians own multiple dwellings to cater for their needs. Yet in the townships people are being supplied with one and two roomed houses to cater for large and sometimes extended families.

Perhaps it is time to plan around people’s needs and customs when building low cost houses in townships. We know that six kids in a two roomed dwelling will eventually result in backyard extensions.

Since rural Africans normally live in groups and have the extended families around them and it is not unusual for colored families to have the grandparents rearing the children while the parents go out to work, we should plan building-developments around these customs.

Homes should not be built and designed according to names on a list but for real families with needs.

Healthy community and family customs should not have to exchanged for a roof over the head.

• Design houses so that it will be strong enough to accommodate an upstairs extension.
  
• Make cost price building materials available to low income families who want to extend their homes.
  
• Set affordable guidelines as to the quality of building extensions, even in the townships.
• Use green building options and the use of solar and wind energy.
• Perhaps roof gardens could be considered to provide outdoor privacy.
• All township developments should have sports fields and instructors to instruct the children how to play the games. (Rugby, tennis, soccer and netball or hockey) . This will encourage the children not to resort to crime, gang violence and partake in the use of drugs due to boredom.
  
• Each township should have a

1. school,
   
2. sports club and a
3. a public library,
   
4. community hall and
   
5. employment and adult skills developer and bureau which house also the
   
6. local social welfare planner,
7. Medical center,
   
8. Animal clinic and a
   
9. play park for the children.
   

• Family members can be clustered together so that they can support each other.
• Encourage homes of family members to be joined in order to create bigger living areas.
• Each housing cluster can be built around a garden for a communal living environment.
• Solar powered boreholes for the irrigation of the gardens.
• An incentive could be provided by allocating a prize to the best-run garden. It could be in the form of a rate reduction for the month or something that will make the living conditions better for the group – a few chickens or something.
• Encourage the community to police their public resources - the school, community hall, sports fields, play parks and library.
  

Ex Unitate Vires

REFUGEE TOWNSHIP?

Refugee solution.

With proper management refugees need not be a drain on the economy.

Perhaps all current South African illegal immigrants should be classified as refugees.

They are in essence refugees in our country regardless of the situations in their native countries.

Perhaps a large unused farm could be turned into a permanent township for displaced people, where their individual skills can be utilized to become self sufficient as a group of people. Skills sharing and educational programmers can empower these people to become self sufficient when they return to their country of origin.

Permanent foreign residents who choose to integrate into the communities should be given the choice to do so.

One cannot expect our country to feed them forever. We have our own poor that need our help.

If dignity is restored among the displaced people, and their lives return to some form of permanence, (until the situation in their own countries return to normal) healing can begin.

Crime of any kind should not be tolerated by immigrants or displaced people. The penalty for such crime should be immediate deportation, regardless of the situation in their country of origin. This may prevent such a township from being turned into headcounters for crime syndicates that feed on the vulnerable and needy.

Original post from Simonye Cape Town http://unitate.iblog.co.za/