Ridge City is in the very heart of its community. Its purpose is to create a safe, strong and positive environment for its community. The members of the community range from many racial backgrounds, all affected by the apartheid era when they were forced out of their homes in Durban and surrounding areas, into other poorly built governmental areas. Still trying to cope with the everyday struggle of survival, battling against crime, drugs, poverty and disease, Ridge City works to care for children by offering them positive role models and prompts growth through its enterprise projects. www.ridgecity.org.za
The vision of Ridge City is to see an entire community become more positive, productive and self-sufficient. This area was established during the apartheid era as a coloured area in line with apartheid government’s policy, ‘The Group Areas Act’, which precluded coloured people from living in central Durban or the suburbs of Durban. Thousands of coloured people were forced from their homes into government flats which were erected in areas outside Durban. Over a period of time the areas around the flats were developed to create more infrastructure; all the development was undertaken at a minimum cost and with little care for the amenities which such a community would need. The main social difficulties experienced are related to HIV-Aids combined with the existing high levels of poverty and unemployment. The area is occupied by many single mothers needing to earn an income, which results in large numbers of vulnerable children. Substance abuse is high due to the proximity of local towns, as is physical abuse, violence and crime.
The purpose of Ridge City is to empower the community to take ownership in projects that will make sustainable and measurable change possible in their community. Ridge City believes passionately that one positive change will lead to many others.
Ridge City has 3 main focus areas, and the various smaller projects fall into these.
Ridge Enterprises
Ridge City aims to establish a trust which would operate a microfinance scheme and business support to continue enterprise development in the area. They have so far supported the establishment of Little Eden Preschool, with whom they share a property, but which is owned by a private individual, Ridge Café which serves food to local community members and is rapidly expanding its services, a small hairdressing salon established in a wooden hut, and Mackays Kitchens which is run by an individual who receives donated furniture which he restores and sells. The enterprises are supported with set-up costs, and once they are running they pay back what they can afford monthly. The enterprises themselves employ the local community members creating employment and Ridge Café is providing work for an additional 3 people itself. Again Ridge City hopes that as more members of the community uplift themselves others will follow, and that one positive change will lead to another. The enterprise development programme is working extremely efficiently, and another positive effect is that money which would be spent elsewhere is going back into the community.
Community mobilisation and feeding scheme
Ridge City runs a twice-weekly soup kitchen and various other schemes that feed children daily, which operate from Ridge Café, one of the first enterprises started by the organisation and now run by the community. Within this project area Ridge City also undertakes makeovers of the local Primary and High Schools, and recently the Police Station. The makeovers have been supported by local churches from the more affluent areas of Durban, which have helped source and fund the materials, as well as getting involved on the day alongside the community. Between 200 and 400 volunteers have taken part in each of these makeovers, and the resulting transformation of these community structures is quite remarkable.
Another area within this project is family support. Families experiencing problems are identified and supported with counselling and other means. A psychologist and 2 students from the University of Kwa Zulu Natal volunteered with Ridge City to offer psychosocial support to the children in the local primary school on a weekly basis. From Ridge Cafe, the hub of the community Ridge City delivers even more projects which include; Ridge Youth which runs activities including an Arts Academy, Soccer, Royal Rangers (similar to the Scout Movement), as well as other interventions to assist with the youth and to keep them away from trouble, and help with the problems they may have at home, school or personally.
Ridge City
Ridge City is renovating a house they have rented for 6 foster children from a Children's Home which has closed, and the existing matron from the home is to become the house mother. The objective is that these children will be integrated into the community. Some of these children are in care due to exceptional circumstances, such as a mother who is in prison, and the intention in these cases is that they will return to the family once it is possible to do so. One difficulty in coloured communities is that extended families do not always take ownership of abandoned and orphaned family members, and if placed in their care these children are often resented and many are further abused.
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