Minister Madikizela to Take Part in World Habitat Day Celebrations

Western Cape Human Settlements Minister Bonginkosi Madikizela will hand over certificates to 39 beneficiaries of the 2 083-unit Pelikan Park housing development in Cape Town tomorrow as part of a Habitat for Humanity event commemorating World Habitat Day. 

The 39 beneficiaries are all recent graduates of the Habitat for Humanity social facilitation programme, which prepares the beneficiaries for home ownership. When complete, all 2 083 beneficiaries are expected to graduate.

The event also represents the end of a week-long Habitat for Humanity build, in which volunteers have worked closely with the community to build houses for 14 of the deserving beneficiaries.

In 1986, The United Nations General Assembly declared the first Monday in October to be World Habitat Day. This is a time to recognise the basic need for adequate shelter in a world where it is lacking for so many, and is a day of grassroots action to advocate for universal decent housing.

The event will connect the Western Cape with the global Habitat family across 80 countries worldwide, raising awareness, educating and mobilising individuals and communities to take action on the current global housing crisis.

There is a need for public-private partnerships in the provision of housing solutions, and the department does not have the resources to cater for the housing need alone. There are currently over 500 000 households on the Western Cape housing list, and the department is allocated funding from the national government to build 12 341 houses and 6 912 sites in the 2013/2014 financial year. It is with this view that the partnerships that support service delivery, such as the one at Pelikan Park, are embraced

The department has provided funding for the Pelikan Park project and Habitat for Humanity, along with the developer, Power Construction, have been acting as social facilitators and working closely with the community, empowering and up-skilling them to bring about the change they themselves want to see.

This social facilitation includes fostering community cohesion among the target homeowner markets, facilitating capacity building and home-owner training with the beneficiaries specifically in the free subsidised housing community, looking at the beneficiary livelihoods and conducting livelihoods assessments to see how their livelihoods strategies can be supported through skills training.

All media are invited

Date: 11 October 2013

Time : 11:00

Place: 14th Avenue, Pelikan Park, Cape Town

Directions :
Take the N2 out of Cape Town. Take the M17 (Jan Smuts Drive) South. Jan Smuts will merge onto New Strandfontein Road. Cross Klip Road and Fifth Avenue and you will see 14th Avenue on your right.