Durban Chamber commits to City Story initiative
City Story released a second video last week to give feedback on progress made over the past few months.
AN initiative by a group of people passionate about Durban and its potential to become a city of excellence took another progressive step last week when the strategy to effect these changes by City Story was discussed at the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Combined Safety and Justice and Central Area Business Forum meeting on Friday.
City Story is made up of a network of individuals from different spheres of life.
Last year, following an expose by Carte Blanche which highlighted the social issues plaguing Durban, the group released a video calling on like-minded individuals and businesses to join them in tackling the issues which plagued Durban
Last week, the organisation released a second video which gives feedback on progress made over the past few months.
https://www.facebook.com/CityStoryDurban/videos/380978369359574/
Speaking at the meeting on Friday, Christo Swart from City Story gave Chamber members a presentation on City Story and its objectives to see Durban grow into a city of excellence.
He said the group aimed to help facilitate people who are passionate about their respective spheres in the city and to plan, support and engage with the city, local government, businesses and churches to see this vision come to fruition.
“Our purpose is to assist and add value to services already provided in the city and to deal with identifying gaps and issues,” he said, adding that the group worked on four areas, including infrastructure, such as bad buildings, operations management and maintenance, people and social issues such as homelessness and street children, and communication, such as the videos released by City Story to date.
He said City Story’s strategy was to identify zones in the city and the assets and issues within these zones, to assist stakeholders such as the municipality, UIP and businesses in identifying projects to make these zones clean and safe and to improve community involvement and communication of information across all stakeholders.
Zones include Umgeni, sports facilities, the centrum, beachfront, Point area, Greyville area, Warwick area and the City Port.
READ RELATED: City Story set to make a change in Durban
Swart said the process would be to scan the zones, identify and record issues, classify and rank issues, determine and prioritise intervention, determine responsibility for tasks which need to be completed, and prioritise staff, volunteers from business or the community, and budget requirements.
He said each person who had shown an interest in being involved had to provide their contact details and identify how they could contribute to projects.
“Our aim is to create a clean and safe city together,” he said.
Alison Elliot from City Story said the aim wasn’t to reinvent the wheel, but to create a platform to create awareness about projects and the initiatives already operating on the ground such as the UIP and the Denis Hurley Centre.
She encouraged people to continue signing up to help where they can.
Jabu Nkomo, chairperson of the Combined Safety and Justice and Central Area Business Forum said the Chamber would commit to joining the initiative and would contribute to specific areas.
“We have business people in the room and it is good to let them know they have the opportunity to get involved and to zoom in and find their niche,” she said, adding that the Chamber could also approach businesses to help with funding the projects.
You can join the movement by visiting: www.city-story.org.
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