Slovo Park at a Glance

Slovo Park is situated in a politically and socially sensitive stretch of land south of Soweto. The community has been known by national government as Nancefield, by local council as Olifantsvlei and in the last five years as Slovo Park – named in honour of South Africa’s first minister of housing and former Umkhonto we Sizwe General, Joe Slovo.

The forced changing of identity reflects an on-going struggle faced by the leadership of Slovo Park to gain recognition as a legitimate settlement to access governmental support. This battle has been fought through constant shifts in governmental policy, power and promises for the community of Slovo Park. Their only tactics comprising of service delivery protest, painstaking formal requests for upgrade and currently a lawsuit against the City of Johannesburg.

Currently the community of Slovo Park with its development partners are strategizing this key social and political move.


THIS SITE SERVES AS A PORTAL FOR THE COMMUNITY OF SLOVO PARK & THE VARIOUS DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS TO SHARE THE JOURNEY OF RE-DEVELOPMENT.


NEWSFEED



.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Day 25: Welcome to Slovo Lake




We arrived this morning to find our meeting space transformed into a lake. All we needed were a few little ducks and a boat or 2 to complete the picture, the community centre forming the "boat house".



We realised that we had serious issues with drainage, even after all our work grading the site a few weeks before. During further excavations a berm had developed on the southern edge. This, along with the sand for the paving that had been placed on the southern edge had effectively created a dam. We also realised that we had to construct a berm or higher level on the western edge to prevent storm water running down the streets to enter the site.



We had to dig a few channels, and note was made of where water was damming. This is to be further addressed tomorrow,

Over and out from a wet, cold Slovo Park dam...