Phumlani Sbonakaliso Myeza, 28, is a community facilitator who works both at community organisations and for the South African SDI Alliance. The alliance has four core members: FEDUP, a women-led, member-based social movement that organises through savings collectives and practices; the Informal Settlement Network, a network of poor communities that collaborate around issues such as landlessness, homelessness and exclusion; the Community Organisation Resource Centre, a nonprofit that supports landless and homeless communities; and the uTshani Fund, a bridging finance institution that manages the urban poor fund and housing projects on behalf of FEDUP. Phumlani is the Durban North region’s community facilitator, who helps to create platforms with municipality officials so that communities can engage with them about problems with the failure to deliver basic services. Through his work Phumlani has been able to influence bylaws and policies at municipal level. His aim is to make informal communities self-reliant and help to spearhead change that leads to a clean, healthy future environment. The greatest challenge that he faced was during the 2021 floods that devastated KwaZulu-Natal. He was personally affected by the floods and he had to assist communities at the same time.
Phumlani is the Durban North Region community facilitator, who helps to create platforms with municipality officials so that communities can engage with them about service delivery, as most informal residents experience severe shortages of these services. Through his work he has been able to influence bylaws and policies at municipal level. His aim is to make informal communities self-reliant and help to spearhead change that leads to a clean, healthy future environment.
The greatest challenge that he faced was during the 2021 floods that devastated KwaZulu-Natal, destroying thousands of homes and severely damaging infrastructure. Although he was personally affected by the flooding, he also had to assist communities at the same time.
I have been able to influence by-laws and policies at the municipal level.
My mother is my role model.