Anectdotes about some of the Masakhane People

by Sonja van der Vyver - Development Practitioner

Maria Selebogo

Maria is one of the Masakhane Community Commitee members and is a single parent to Karabo (3). Karabo's dad died while Maria was expecting Karabo. Maria is unemployed and has no support structure. Her only income is the goverment child grant which she receives for Karabo. She is a generous person, who, when a donation of blankets was received for the settlement insisted that there were other people who were more in need of a blanket than her - despite the fact that she was listed as one of the 50 people most in need of help in the community. Maria holds the portfolio of Social Services in the community commitee and is currently trying to assist those people who are having difficulty with obtaining an ID document. Maria says that she would like to be able to generate an income but that she has no one who can take care of Karabo while she is away at work. A community centre with a creche could help people like Maria to get involved in more productive persuits by taking care of children like Karabo. Maria could also benefit from skills training which would improve her chances of becoming financially self sustaining.

Emmie Kgope

Emmie Kgope is a member of the community commitee and serves as 'Health Care' coordinator. Emmie is a dynamic person who volunteered her services as ABET facilitator during a recent literacy programme which was implemented by the Department of Education. Unfortunately the programme was discontinued when almost all the adults dropped out as a result of being unable to commit the time neccesary to walk 5 km to the nearest school every day in order to attend the programme. It is Emmie's dream to enrol for the National Certificate Course in ABET through UNISA and to become a qualified ABET practitioner. Providing Emmie with the opportunity to fullfil this dream could be very beneficaial to this community. Adult Educational programmes often fail because they take a long time and are not sustainable from outside of the community. With the neccesary resources, Emmie could provided litteracy training to the community on a long term basis.

As Health Care Coordinater, Emmie could use her teaching provide Basic Health Care training to the community. Teaching mothers about health issues such as malnutrition, dehydration, hygiene related disease and HIV/AIDS could be very beneficial in preventing illnesses and poor health in this comunity.

Yvonne Kgope

Yvonne is the community comitee leader and communicator. At the community meeting where the commitee was first elected Yvonne acted in a revolutionary way by electing herself, a woman, as the Commitee leader. In a community where the customs do not encourage women to stand up for themselves or to be part of the decision making processess which affect them, this certainly made everyone at that meeting sit up and pay attention to what Yvonne was saying. She launched into a memorable speech during which she pledged her commitment to see that promises were delivered and issues addressed. Yvonne's nomination of her self as community leader was accepted unanimously by the community. Yvonne has since shown her commitment to the development of her community through her involvement in all community activities and especially through her endeavours re. youth participation in community activities.

Beauty Kubu

Beauty Kubu is 18 years old. She terminated her high school attendance after grade 10 due to the lack of transport to and from the school. Beauty is a single parent to Bonolo - a baby of 6 months old, but hopes to be able to complete her schooling in order to be trained as a police woman. Beauty says that she will certainly attend the life skills programme which will be implemented in the community. She says that she has to better herself in order to provide a better life for her and Bonolo.

The Children of Masakhane

Children are a very important issue in any community because they are the future of the community and the country. If interventions such as education and community development can improve the lives of the community in such a way that children benefit from it, then the future wellbeing of that community is potentially improved. However, if the physical and mental wellbeing of the current generation is not urgently attended to, problems such as poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and low productivity will simply be perpetuated.

The primary school children attend Rand Gold Primary school which is situated about 5 km from the settlement. The children walk to the primary school and back.

Malnutrition is a factor affecting many of the children in this community. Some donations of food have been received from the NGKWelfare but ultimately enterprise development through skills training would be a more sustainable solution to relieve poverty in this community. However, the benefits of a feeding scheme to alleviate the shortage of food especially for the children of this community in the interim is something which needs to be looked at. A creche at the proposed community centre could be a valuable resource where children affected by HIV/AIDS, malnutrition etc. could be identified and targeted to receive the proper attention.

The High School children attend the state high school in Magaliesburg. Problems with transport to this school previously caused a number of high school children to drop out. As a result there are quite a few out of school youth and young people who did not complete their high school careers in this community. Efforts are being made by the commitee and development practitioners to address this issue and to prevent marginilisation of these youths. Teenage pregnancies, HIV/AIDS etc are all problems which are exarcerbated by children being out of school and unproductive. The proposed community centre could play a vital role in reintegrating marginilised youth into the community through providing opportunity for training and productive activities to young people.

Article to be updated with more pictures and information when signal improves.

Standford the builder

Standford is a member of the Masakhane community who has used his skills as a builder to employ not only himself, but a team of 4 men from within the community of Masakhane.

Standford started doing small building jobs about 5 years ago. His work is of such a high standard that he now employs 4 people permanently and several more on a casual basis.

Standford drew up the preliminary plans for the proposed community centre at Masakhane and staked out the site to show delegates from SAB where the proposed centre would be built.

With some life skills and vocational training e.g. Small Bussiness Management, Standford's potential as an entrepeneur could be fully realised. Through development of Standford's existing skills as builder and entrepeneur he could play a vital role in development of this community.

Cleaning up the Village.

On Friday 17 October the Masakhane community held a clean-up day. The event was organised and coordinated by development practitioners from Village Power, NGKWelsyn and members of the community commitee. Yvonne Kgope (pictured here), the commitee leader, organised the community members into teams.




Participants received some T-Shirts and over 30 black refuse bags were filled. These had to be removed by a development practitioner to be taken to the Magaliesburg refuse site.



The majority of adults who were in the settlement on the day participated although mothers with babies were cautioned to stay out of the very hot midday sun.









Small children tagged along with their mothers and also helped to get the settlement cleaned up.

The settlement has no refuse removal services. At a recent meeting this issue was raised. The Hekpoort municipality will be approached to give advice to the community and other stakeholders re. a possible refuse site or refuse removal services for the settlement.





The active participation of the youth in this project was very noticible. The young people were motivated and friendly, like this young girl, Johanna, who got into an unused empty cement reservoir and cleaned it of all the refuse that had collected there over time. This participation of the youth in community activities is an encouraging sign that the out of school youth in this settlement might not all be marginalised and the possibility of peer education exists as a measure to address marginilised youth within this community. The mobilisation of the youth of this community is an issue which is taken very seriously by Yvonne Kgope, the community leader.


The community was visited by Sue Clark, Corporate Affairs Director and Jenni Gillies, Group HIV Consultant SABMiller plc.

Refreshments were made available to all participants afterwards and a festive spirit with lots of singing and dancing prevailed despite the intense heat.

The clean-up day was very successful and proves that this community is actively working towards a better future for themselves.

Fixing the Road

The access road to the settlement is a major factor contributing to problems such as Health Care provision, transport etc. When it rains this road gets very muddy and then only 4 x 4 vehicles can drive on it. This often cuts the settlement off from the main road with dire results for those needing medical attention.

Once the commitee had been established the comitee members mobilised the community to fix the access road.

Every able body in the community helped to fix the road.

The women carried the stones in buckets.

Even the elderly and young children helped by carrying stones etc.

A group of teenagers set themselves the task of writing down the names of every head of household and their house number. The youth in this settlement are kept quite active through the endeavors of the comitee leader, Yvonne Kgope. There is quite a large contingent of out of school youth as a result of a lack of transport to the high school at Magaliesburg. The empowerment of the youth through intervention programmes such as the NOAH programme is essential to avoid another generation from 'falling behind' and becoming marginalised.

The maintanance of this road is an ongoing project as the settlement is situated on high ground on the foothills of the Magaliesburg Mountains. The road has since been fixed and graded with money made available by the ANC Councilor Dennis Thabe. However, in order for the community to keep up the maintenance of this 2 km long stretch of dirt road, they need implements such as spades, buckets and at least another 2 wheelbarrows. (the community only have one wheelbarrow).

Some factors affecting the community

The settlement of Masakhane is situated in the Gauteng Province, approximately 15 km from the small town of Magaliesburg. This is a rural informal settlement consisting of approximately 150 zink dwellings housing just under a 100o people. A number of problems are faced by this community. Most of these issues are common factors affecting rural settlements in South Africa. However, because Masakhane is situated in the Gauteng Province it does not benefit from a 'Rural Settlement Grant'. Rural settlements in all other provinces are elligible for this grant.

Masakhane has no water, and water for cooking and drinking purposes gets delivered by a truck from the municipality twice a week. Water get stored in plastic 'scoops' and often gets contaminated by dust etc. Hygiene related illnesses are a problem because of the lack of fresh water. There is a small stream nearby where the women of the community go to do their washing in summer. Sometimes, when the water truck doesn't deliver water for a while, the community gets their drinking water from this stream. This increases the risk of hygiene related illness such as diahroea, dysentry etc.

The poor state of the access road to Masakhane has a detrimental effect on a number of factors affecting this settlement. Public health care services, such as the mobile clinic or ambulances cannot reach the settlement when it has been raining. As mentioned above, the water truck often fails to deliver water due to the state of the road. One of the very first things the community worked together on was in fixing this access road. Women and men carried large stones on their heads and even children helped to carry sand and stones in buckets to fix the road.
There is a need for a community centre for this community. A recent literacy program, run by the Department of Educationa has failed to provide this community with literacy skills because learners had to walk 5 km every day to get to the school where the program was presented.
A number of the mothers of small children are unable to engage in income generating activities, because there is no creche facilities for small children. A community centre could be used as a creche where babies and toddlers could be kept busy and looked after while the mothers pursue productive activities.
Masakhane is an informal settlement and all dwellings are zink shacks. These structures are not water - or wind proof and get very cold in winter and wet when it rains in summer. There is no electricity at the settlement and food gets prepared on wood fires in outside lean to's. Wood for these fires are scarce and the women of the community spend a lot of their time looking for wood. The community borders a game reserve where lions are kept. The woman sometimes go into the lion camp to get wood for their fires especially in winter when it is very cold.


Malnutrition is a problem in Masakhane and is linked to poverty. The lack of water in the settlement means that people cannot grow their own vegetables. malnutrition causes problems such as low immunity to disease in kids and adults, cognitive developmental problems in children and exarcebates the effects of hygiene related illness and HIV/AIDS.






Some of the community members engage in income generating activities such as cutting grass for thatching, but there is a serious skills shortage in the settlement. Litteracy levels are very low and employment in the area is very scarce. Masakhane is situated in an area where a transition from agricultural activities to hospitality related ventures are taking place. This has reduced the need for unskilled farm workers. Residential development in the area could provide some employment opportunities for skilled builders, tilers etc. while the restaurants and tourist accomodation in the area could make use of waiters, barmen, cleaning staff, kitchen staff etc. Nature reserves in the area could provide work for people trained as nuture guides, trackers etc. Skills training, life skills orientation and litteracy training could provide the members of this community with the opportunities they need to be able to become self sustaining and empowered.