Solar eclipses mean different things to different people — a mystical natural phenomenon to New Age hippies, a fascinating scientific event to amateur astronomers. But for the people of the isolated Karoo town of Sutherland, an eclipse means jobs.
A group of 56 people — one each from the poorest households among the 2500 residents — made solar viewers, necessary for anyone wanting to view the December 4 full solar eclipse without sustaining permanent damage to their eyesight.
Five weeks before the eclipse an order for half-a-million viewers was placed, bringing even more jobs in the poverty alleviation/job creation project, which by then had already produced 400 000 solar viewers.
Most of the workers, like Marthinus Malou (34) who is disabled, have been part of the project since it started last year, a few months ahead of the partial eclipse in June. “It’s working out well for me. It means a lot to me to be part of this project,” says Malou as he cuts strips of black polymer film for the solar viewers’ lenses. “I don’t know how many I cut, but it’s a lot. I never counted!”
There is little else but sheep in Sutherland, enclosed by vast expanses of the arid Karoo, and, of course, the observatory, where the largest southern hemisphere telescope, the Southern African Large Telescope (Salt), is currently under construction.
And it was the association with the observatory that got the town fathers thinking about sustainable ways to provide income-generating opportunities for the community where unemployment stands between 65% and 80% and most young people leave to try their luck in big cities.
The solar viewer project took some time to get off the ground. However, once funding was secured from the Northern Cape government through a grant it was all systems go. The money was paid into a local development fund, which repaid the cost of materials to maintain cash levels for future job creation schemes. A company in Cape Town supplies the cardboard frame, a United Kingdom-based company the special film through which an eclipse can be safely viewed. The local primary school made available two classrooms for the teams that assemble the viewers.
Sabiena Harmse (54) responded to the call for applications as it was an opportunity not to be missed. She had worked for 16 years in a local shop, but when she married her husband he insisted she stop. The couple and their five-year-old child live in her mother’s house — with Harmse’s sister and her two children.
Harmse is one of the team leaders, who double up as quality controllers, in charge of the five people working at each table: one lines up the cardboard frames, one applies glue, another places the film lenses on to the frame, another folds them and one wipes off any glue residue.
“It means we can get by,” says Harmse. “It’s lekker.”
At a rate of 1 000 viewers per table per day, Monday to Friday, every one gets R150 at the end of each week.
For Selome Ryk (21), that money goes towards the household kitty to supplement her mother’s meagre earnings. She finished matric last year, but there is no money for further studies — two younger siblings are still in school. “When the project ends, I have no idea what I’ll do then,” Ryk says.
The Karoo Hoogland Municipality, in conjunction with the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), supervises the job creation project and would like to expand the sale of solar viewers across the globe.
Despite some difficulties in accessing local marketing opportunities aside from the direct orders ahead of December 4, the municipality believes the project is ready for expansion. The next total eclipse is visible in South Africa only in 2030, but eclipses happen at some time or other elsewhere around the world. And at a price of R1,30, compared with the international price of $6, the Sutherland viewers are incredibly competitive.
“We have an enormous degree of poverty and unemployment. We are determined to get the poor people, who have no other employment opportunity, involved,” says councillor Henry Abdoll.
But Sutherland is also putting its hopes for economic benefits on the relationship with the observatory. The number of visitors to the observatory is expected to increase once Salt is operational. A number of guesthouses have already opened, providing additional jobs for local residents.
Already in place is the planetary highway — the solar system reduced to scale and placed across Sutherland on carved plinths so that a visitor finds Uranus just outside the dorpie, Jupiter at its entrance and Earth at the gravel road leading into the township.
While a visitors’ centre with a focus on interactive exhibitions on science and astronomy is planned at the telescope, the town also stands to gain an activity centre. It will house the local municipality, an information centre, sports and recreational facilities and various small and medium business premises.
And it would be the ideal place for an entrepreneur ready to take over the solar viewer project from council, says Abdoll.