Wallacedene

Bonga Innocent Zantsi (HOPE Community Health Worker)

Bonga Zantsi joined HOPE Cape Town in July 2007.  Originally from the Eastern Cape Province, Bonga has a deep interest in health issues and interest in working with people.  Bonga lives in the Kraaifontein area and worked at the Wallacedene Clinic since 2002 as a volunteer peer educator and, more recently, with ARK as a Patient Advocate with the responsibility of monitoring clients on ARV treatment regimes.  In 2004, Bonga became a Research Assistant to Zamstar in the fields of HIV, AIDs and TB.  His facility in Xhosa and ability to interpret for clinic clients plus specific training in facilitation, ARVs, research methods and experience in initiating and maintaining support groups for men are additional aspects of expertise he brings to HOPE Cape Town. 

Wallacedene Clinic

The newly-built clinic is the primary source of medical assistance from Monday through Friday (800h to 1630h).  Daily this busy facility receives approximately 200+ clients for Immunization and sick babies, 400+ for TB and 60+ for Voluntary HIV Testing and Counselling.  A municipal facility with the nurse driven model (including diagnosis, prescription and treatment), the clinic has a staff compliment of four nursing sisters, two assistant nurses and a part-time TB doctor.  In 2007, the clinic is scheduled to become an ARV Treatment site.  In addition to HOPE Cape Town, seven other Non-Government Organizations are based at the Wallacedene Clinic. 

The urgent health issues are:
High incidence of TB infection and re-infection due to inadequate housing and overcrowding (7-15 persons/shack) in the informal settlement area, and
HIV infection rate of 1:3.  The majority of the youth aged 13 and upwards is HIV infected; the incidence of the teenage pregnancy and the potential for transmission of HIV positive status from mother to child is significant. Another significant challenge is maintaining contact with treatment defaulters relocating within this rapidly growing community.  

Wallacedene Community

Wallacedene is approximately 40 kilometres from the Cape Town city center. Today the population of Wallacedene and environs is estimated to be 68.000+ inhabitants.  From twenty families squatting on the Uitkyk farm in the 1980s, the settlement grew after the Abolition of Influx Control Act 68 of 1986 (rescinding the pass laws) to become a destination for urban migration within and into the Western Cape Province.  As Wallacedene expanded friction between the surrounding property owners and the expanding informal settlement resulted in a cycle of eviction, demolition and rebuilding.
Wallacedene is the site of the pivotal Grootboom (‘Big Tree’ in Afrikaans) Case that determined the obligation of the government to fulfil the constitutional right of children, in particular orphans and homeless children, to basic shelter and nutrition [under The Constitution of South Africa Act 108 of 1996; Section 28(1)(c)].  This Constitutional Court case remains a source of major influence on government policy and practices relating to informal settlements.
Residents live in either the Formal or Informal Settlement.  Estimated at 10% of Wallacedene housing stock (Statistics South Africa census 2001), the Formal Settlement consists of Government built houses with two rooms (a family area with kitchen and one bedroom) supplied with electricity, indoor toilets and running water.  In contrast, housing in the informal settlement are multiple shacks per plot with 7-15 inhabitants/unit, a single bed, no running water, plumbing and a questionable electrical supply.
A total of ten churches are found in Wallacedene.  The community has thirteen crèches, two primary schools and one high school.  Despite a reduced school fee system (R 7/annum for primary school), many youth are early school leavers due to poverty and are currently unemployed.

Statistics: City of Cape Town Census 2001 at http://www.capetown.gov.za/censusinfo/Census2001

Bonga

township impression

water supply