Concerned resident writes :
In the wake of the successful national #FeesMustFall campaign, I’d like to share my story of how solidarity among a small group of people helped us
achieve a common goal and bettered our lives.
I moved into a complex in Honeydew in November 2013, wowed by the relatively low rental of the very adequate two bedroom unit in the
well-maintained complex.
Despite the complex’s proximity to the Zandspruit Informal Settlement, I was assured that it was secure, with few incidences of break-ins and robberies.
Access control, a security guard and cameras at the gate 24 hours a day, electric fencing and decent burglar bars on the unit itself. I was sold!
The multi-cultural, multi-racial complex was peaceful at first, everybody going about their business with communication between neighbours mostly kept to the odd courteous greeting.
But, as of about October last year, more and more people started moving out of the complex, often in a very big hurry.
Some had been robbed during the night and couldn’t get out of the unit fast enough, apparently because it hadn’t been the first time many of them had been held at gunpoint in the very same unit. Others, as a result, left before they could be targeted.
And as us residents continued our culture of “every-man-for-himself”, things just got worse with the complex becoming an unusually regular target for
criminals.
The regularity of robberies and break-ins reached its peak in July this year, when on the 13th the whole complex awoke to very loud gunshots.
Armed men had robbed a couple and their friends who were enjoying a braai, while both couples’ young children were in the unit.
The robbers shot into the air as warnings not to follow them as they fled with goods. Fortunately nobody got physically hurt, but you can imagine the trauma for these people.
For the first time, as we – residents, a group of strangers – stood together in the bitter cold in solidarity and support for the victims, we realised how bad
things had become.
That incident had been at least the fourth at the complex in July alone, with a steady stream of incidents starting from the beginning of the year. It was then that we resolved to do something about it.
We started a Whatsapp group, we stopped to chat in the street about what was going on and we took measures to try and warn each other if we were in trouble.
Fiery meetings with the complex management resulted in a change of security guards, amid strong suspicions the guards themselves may have been involved in some break-ins by purposefully allowing criminals access.
Tenants who were also suspected of being involved in the break-ins, or storing stolen goods, were also evicted, and I am happy to report that over the past couple of months, we’ve all been sleeping much easier at night.
The number of incidents dropped considerably. It could not have been done had an element of camaraderie and care for others not been injected into an issue that was affecting us a whole.
This is the same principle behind the #FeesMustFall campaign, albeit on a much smaller scale, but one which has certainly bettered the lives of our small community.
You don’t need to wait to join grand protests to effect change for the better. That change can start with you, together with your friends, your family, your
neighbours, your colleagues. All it takes is unity towards a common goal, and the will to take action and see it through to the end.
With perhaps an over-reliance on government and authorities, people forget the power they hold within themselves and the change they can effect, even if only in their immediate surroundings.
Life is what you make it. The only question left now is: what’s stopping you?
