Gustav Thiel
The Victoria Mxenge Housing Savings Scheme is proof that all it takes to overcome dire poverty and a pressing need for shelter is courage and dedication.
When Patricia Matolengwe started the scheme in 1992 she had no idea of how far-reaching her initiative would be. Last Friday, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, she received a major United Nations development programme award for her contribution to alleviating poverty on the Cape Flats.
More importantly, with her drive and foresight, she succeeded in lifting the spirits of 11 desperately poor single mothers and convinced them that it was possible to own their own houses. “In a real way, we were the poorest of the poor – we were single mothers, without real homes and with uncertain futures,” says Matolengwe.
The women, each with an average income of less than R800 a month and at least three dependents, decided they could start making a difference to their situation by saving at least 50c per day.
Their dream was to save enough ultimately to build their own houses. As news of their initiative spread, other women on the Cape Flats decided to join the scheme, which is now officially part of the South African Homeless People’s Federation. Matolengwe started negotiating at the end of 1992 for a piece of land on the Flats that was being used as a waste dumping ground.
The Catholic Church, which owned the land, decided to donate it to Matolengwe. “Four of the women were put on a brickmaking scheme to prepare for the day when we would start building. By then we had saved R1 200 and put it in the bank.”
Scheme members – today numbering 280 women and six men – had to decide whether they wanted to settle on the Cape Flats. Only 148 decided to stay, and were each given a plot on the three vacant hectares donated by the church.
Together with People’s Dialogue, a housing non-governmental organisation, the women planned their new settlement, complete with an early care centre and mobile clinic. Today three-quarters of the houses are nearing completion and almost half the scheme members have moved into their houses.
The houses, which would normally cost R35 000, were erected for less than R10 000, because the women did most of the work themselves.
But Matolengwe still lives in her three- roomed shack in a nearby squatter settlement. “In most cases people who are in the forefront always benefit first when the tree bears fruit. This is fine, because we know we will all get our share of the land.”