“You can’t clean only the part of the pool you’re swimming in.” – New York Times
This sentence captures the essence of our approach to community transformation. We need to tackle the broader structures and systems that shape living together with communities and local role players. Our neighbourhoods hold incredible potential to self-organise and sometimes all that is required is an ‘engine room’ or so-called backroom that co-ordinates and facilitates this process.
Last week, Ranyaka and Impact Funding Platform, Valcare, co-hosted a community stakeholder workshop in Lantana, Paarl. This workshop is part of a journey that (and this is our hope) will see Lantana move towards transforming itself into a thriving community. These workshops focus on identifying the key challenges, priorities, roleplayers, resources, opportunities and potential projects by really listening to what the people who live and work in this area have to say.
Lantana is one of the areas that forms part of Nedbank’s Proud about my Town programme. Proud of my Town is driven by Ranyaka’s Collaborative Community Development Model. Ranyaka is also the official, national implementing agent for the initiative that seeks to activate communities around a common agenda and take up the charge for upliftment in their own areas.