Foreigners get a taste of Alex

A group of foreigners on a conference visit to the country got a taste of Alexandra from the townships’ befitting ambassadors.

The group visited the area for a Synergos, a non-profit organisation, conference and took the time to visit this historical settlement to learn about its history and challenges. The organisation’s work is to strengthen collaborative leadership and partnerships on human rights and service delivery.

The visitors were informed of the desire of Alex’s land and property owners to return the area to its former glory, which was destroyed by the apartheid regime through forced removals and expropriation of legally-owned land by blacks.

The group co-ordinated by Common Purpose, a non-profit organisation, comprised Africans and Europeans in senior positions from different international companies and organisations including the World Bank. Local philanthropist Linda Twala informed them of how the land dispossessions and the dumping of people elsewhere paved the way to land invasion and squatting, the current shacks, the filth and rats which all give the settlement a negative image. “The rat population in the area will soon evict us,” he joked. He narrated the desire of children for education to enable them to lead better lives and the involvement of others in the children’s parliament where they are learning leadership roles from an early age. Twala decried the loss of other children’s future due to lethal drugs which were not there in the past.

Jackie Sekgopa of the Alexandra Land and Property Owners Association (Alpoa) narrated the history of Africans’ land ownership in the early 30s and 40s and how it rattled the then regime to promulgate laws to dispossess them so that they could remain perpetual workers and servants. This he said was also from fear by whites of the emerging black elite living next to them. He said the descendants of those African landowners have sustained the quest for the return of their family land and property through land claims facilitated by an enabling legislation promulgated by the current regime. This he said, will enable the land and property owners to return the township to its former glory by de-densifying the area and redeveloping it through partnerships with some agencies. The group members praised the country for its exemplary experimentation with a democratic model, which they said appears to be holding and providing for a brighter future for its citizens.