According to the MMC for Community Development, councillor Nonhlanhla Sifumba, the naming of streets serves two important functions, namely practically, to help find places, navigate and move around the City and ensure that emergency and other services can access residents in need easily, and culturally, to bring meaning to a place by contributing to the cultural heritage and identity of that particular area.
Places are the beginning and end of every journey, and the names we give to the places we live in should have meaning and reflect their communal identity and dignity.
“In an effort to resolve the backlog of unnamed streets in the City of Johannesburg, the Community Development Departments’ Arts, Culture and Heritage Directorate was mandated by Council on Thursday to give priority to areas such as Bramfischerville in terms of allocating street names where there are none at present,” Sifumba said.
Bramfischerville is a formalised settlement near Dobsonville, Soweto, in Region C, established in 2008 under Black Communities Development Act 74 of 1984, as amended by Act 74 of 1988, but this was done without the allocation of street names. The Community Development Department received an application for street names through the ward councillor and the matter was extensively discussed as part of a public consultation process, which was conducted to allow community members to come up with names for the streets to ensure buy-in, as well to give the community ownership of the process. The consultation process was done in line with the City’s policy on the naming of streets and other public places.
Sifumba also stated that, “Every resident has the right to an address – if there is no street name, there is no address. Being without an address is a denial of human dignity, which marginalises and excludes people from receiving basic services. Diphetogo has now ensured that the people of Bramfischerville and surrounds will have their dignity restored.”
