The Victoria Mxenge Housing Project: Women building communities through social activism and informal learning by Salma Ismail

Author:Salma Ismail [Ismail, Salma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4851-1563-2
Publisher: UCT Press
Published: 2015-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

Although the director was open in his views about the VM women’s development and present position, the VM women did not critique the PD openly. Instead, they expressed their frustration that the PD deducted money from their salaries to repay their loans, but that the rest of the community, who were not repaying their loans, were not similarly ‘penalised’. They complained that this was unfair. They complained further that they could not find employment in the building industry because their skills were not

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certified. They were exhausted because they worked long hours into the night and over weekends, and sometimes needed to go away for long periods of time, which meant leaving their children with family or friends. They felt that they were not paid adequately and were unacknowledged by the PD and the Federation membership (Field notes: Informal conversations with VM women from May to July 2002).

These cleavages presented the PD leadership with the opportunity to put forward its restructuring proposals to decentralise the regional Federation, to have a system of rotational leadership and replace participatory democracy with representative democracy. Other proposals were to rebuild the savings groups to become the main organising vehicle, to devolve decision-making powers to savings schemes and usher in a new leadership, with members from the landless groups taking up key positions. The emphasis on increasing the membership of the landless at leadership and grassroots levels was an attempt to radicalise the organisation and displace the current leadership. The critical advantage that the PD leadership had in this power struggle was that they held the financial power and technical skills. The PD leaders’ initial attempts to restructure did not go uncontested.

Other criticisms made of the PD were that the leadership did not always hold steadfastly to the principle of organising only among the poor. The technical adviser recalled that some members, who were better off and who wanted larger homes, often applied for bigger loans and came into conflict with the PD leadership. The PD leadership preferred to fund smaller projects as its philosophy changed to organise the poorest of the poor. However, in most cases the PD leadership approved loans to more affluent members.

Proposals for restructuring were discussed in 2001, task teams consisting of Federation and PD members were set up to gather information, and certain processes like the revival of savings schemes and reflection sessions began in 2002. The re-election of national office bearers took place at the end of 2003.

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