Map of South African slum, Khayelitsha
Introduction:
Khayelitsha is a slum located south east from cape town in south Africa as shown in the diagrams above. The township 25 km from cape York and 19km from Wynberg and the name Khayelitsha is a name of Xhosa (South African person generally living in the East Cape) origin which means ‘new home.’ There are 5 characteristics a place must have to be deemed a slum and Khayelitsha ticks those 5 categories. These are…
Appropriate sanitation: In May 2017, there were around 100 members went to the mayor’s office to give a petition. The petition was made to make a plead for better sanitation. This doesn’t prove that much as it could have just been outsiders looking …show more content…
An adult wrote about the safety of their child, "I cannot take the risk of letting my child live with me [in Khayelitsha] because I fear that she will be raped because the majority of rape victims are children" - Amelia Mfiki
Sufficient space: Space is a problem in Khayelitsha. 400,000 people living in 39 square kilometres isn’t that pretty, especially when you know that in Melbourne, within 50 square kilometres, there are only 161 people living there. It’s that much of a difference!
Clean water: The water is very scarce around the whole of Cape Town as they area counting down the days until Day Zero where the taps will run dry. The water isn’t clean either around the area, which is spreading diseases and is …show more content…
An article from “The South African” explains that many jobless youths move to Khayelitsha to clear municipal land a build shacks there because they “can’t afford to pay rent.” Many people get kicked out by their landlord because they’re using too much electricity for example or they just don’t have any money to pay for their housing. A local said “I move from one shack to another because landlords chuck me out when they realise that I don’t have money to pay rent at the end of the month. Now I’m tired of renting.” Permanent housing is a problem here.
How the slum was made:
Khayelitsha was made and thought to solve two big problems in South Africa. This was that they would stop the huge amounts of migrants coming from the east side of Cape York and to settle the overcrowding in the other towns within Cape York. Many black Africans moved into the area at first but in 1994, when the historic elections took place, there were hundreds of thousands of people who moved into urban areas to find work and/or education. They didn’t have that much money, so they created shacks from wood and cardboard, creating the beginning of the famous slum.
Positives and