Blikkiesdorp was built by the City of Cape Town in 2007 by the current premier Helen Zille, she was the mayor of Cape Town at the time. Blikkiesdorp is the Afrikaans word derived from Tin Can Town. The residents of the camp gave it the name because of the look and feel of the structures. Rows upon rows of iron and tin structures, neatly spaced, Blikkies/ Tins in rows.
Today 16000 people from all the racial demographics in South Africa call these steel structures and the sand dunes surrounding it, home. The monotone structures and grey palette of the scenery leaves you with little to be excited about. The residents live in close proximity to each other in 18 square meter tin and corrugated iron structures. Four structures share the ablution facilities and this also creates very unhygienic living conditions, as each structure houses between 5 to 15 people.
Even though all the heartache and pain that these people are suffering breaks your heart, the sense of positivity and will to survive is contagious. Many community members run their own little shops to provide the necessities for every day survival. Living from hand to hand, day to day, caring for and looking after each other.
I have known community leaders in the camp for over three years and in the time that I have been shooting there, little have been done to protect these vulnerable human beings. More people are standing in cues for houses and the camp is seen as a temporary solution to housing problems. Daily people are taken off the streets and allocated structures. More people, more crime.
Over the last three years Blikkiesdorp has been featured in various local, national and international publications and the negative publicity resulting from this is having a very negative impact on the community. Little is being done to change the current situation and the residents feel that they have been forgotten. Some even compare their living conditions to that of dogs living in kennels or to a concentration camp.
The media has referred to Blikkiesdorp as District 9, from the international hit movie made in South Africa. Local Newspapers reported about this on their front pages. Still nothing is being done about the living conditions of these poor individuals who are still fighting the elements, crime and poverty every day, to survive.
I started this project in Memory of Ouma, one of the oldest residents of Blikkies who starved, whilst the whole world was playing soccer in Cape Town.
Blikkiesdorp
OUMA
Through the eyes of a child
Portrait of Ouma Magdelena
Magdalena van Wyk passed away in 2010. She died of severe TB and starvation. The feeding schemes of Government and associated institutions are not serving the needs of the ever-growing community. When I met Ouma Magdalena in 2009, there were only 4000 residents in Blikkies. Today there are 16000 inhabitants. Some of them " Bergies" or street people, that was taken of the roads of Cape Town just before the World Cup in 2010. This amounted to a huge increase of people in the camp.
Portrait of Ouma Johanna
Johanna photographed in 2009 with her favourite green dress. She passed away in 2010. She died of starvation.
Ouma Johanna sitting outside her "house", she was a mother to the community, a leader and loved to be photographed.Ouma Johanna passed away in 2010. She died of starvation
Streets with no name
The Mask
Politics
Untitled
Swing
Playground
Garbage dump
Shade
Toy Soldiers
Untitled
Canned
Proud Afrikaans nurse
The Victor Family
Adeen Victor sitting in the Family structure in Blikkiesdorp. In the foreground is a picture of Adeen when she was three.
Elna and Adeen Victor sitting in their structure in Blikkiesdorp. We had a discussion on the wedding portrait and Faan and Elna's wedding. Adeen Remarked. "That woman there in that picture, she is not my mom. " I found this interesting and asked why she said that, because a few minutes ago she said that it is her mom and dad's wedding portrait. Adeen aswered. "You see, that woman in that picture, she is smiling, my mother does not smile anymore.
True Love
Adeen and Anton found love
Braiding
Cancer
Eileen Plaatjies was diagnosed with Cancer last year. The doctors that was treating her, gave up hope and said there is nothing more to be done to help her in her fight against the disease. According to her care givers, neighbors and woman from the Blikkiesdorp community, she was given two bottles of Liquid Morphine to drink and was send home from Hospital.
Family time.
The Colerigde and Cloete Family.
Here Sharon Coleridge is feeding Duwayne Cloete, Luevanna Coleridge, Shannon-Lee Colerigde and Melissa Cloete shares interesting gossip.
Everywhere in the streets little groups of people playing Dominoes.
Dominoes
Zelda Schritten with her young boy Zievan.The van der Westhuizen family lives in a shack in a Veld in Belhar. They are living without access to fresh running water, electricity and access to toilets. I spend some time in the beginning of winter 2009 with a Family that live in a veld in Belhar.The van der Westhuizens are one of seven families living on a piece of land that became their “Veld-dorp”.The remaining seven families living in the “Veld-Dorp” refuse to relocate to Blikkiesdorp, a housing project that provides temporary shelter for the poor and homeless on the Cape Flats. Many of the previous residents of this veld were removed and received temporary housing in Blikkiesdorp. The crimes in Blikkiesdorp, the violence, robberies and rapes have kept these families from moving.All the families, are dependent on donations of food packages and clothing for their survival, as none of them are employed and they struggle to make a living of the state grants that they receive.
HOPE
The streets of Blikkiesdorp or as some called it, the "human" dumping ground.
THE PROJECT
In Association with Uthango® Social Investments and Eclipse PR, I am currently working on a project in Blikkiesdorp, a temporary relocation area in Delft, Cape Town South Africa.
The partners share a mission to use their respective strengths to bring about social change – starting with documenting realities of a marginalized area in Cape Town, and in our immediate environment, Blikkiesdorp. We want to play a role to communicate the messages of people living and working in difficult socio-economic circumstances, but also to act upon those messages with a sustainable initiative in the form of establishing a photography-based social enterprise. (It is central in our collaboration to develop an appropriate model linking photo-journalism to publicity/advocacy and longer-term social impact - without affecting the objective role of reporting current truths). Uthango® Social Investments works intimately with communities to solve challenges, but require resources to implement sustainable solutions in areas such as Blikkiesdorp:
This shanty town was built by the City of Cape Town in 2007 by then Mayor Helen Zille. It contains approximately 1,600 one room structures. The structures have walls and roofs made of thin tin and zinc sheets. They are of 18 square meters in size. Ablution, sanitation, and water facilities are shared between four structures. NGOs, international human rights organizations, and the Anti-Eviction Campaign have publicly criticized the conditions in Blikkiesdorp but conditions remain appalling and stand in stark contrast with the rest of cosmopolitan Cape Town. Together we plan to raise the profile of Blikkiesdorp in an a-political way. We believe that images – combined with the appeals from local residents – would result in action. More importantly, action should be constructed in a sustainable way by producing market-driven products from photographs, as we currently find that empathy with the community is expressed via hand-outs from companies and individuals alike.
I have worked as a photojournalist in South Africa for 4 years and had work published in locally and internationally. I completed a Digital Masters course with Africa Media online in 2008, I currently work on commercial projects and when I have time, I visit Blikkiesdorp.
The exhibition resulting from the project would be my first solo exhibition. Funding would be spend on the last three phases of the project, Phase 2: Images Capture & Release, Phase 3 Advocacy, Publicity, Exhibition & Sales (Income from Postcards to Beneficiaries), Phase 4 Recommendations for Sustainable Development. We hope that our initiative would refocus attention to the community in Blikkiesdorp and give the people of Tin Town back their pride.
Lizane Louw Photojournalist
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