The birth of Ntirhisano Community Centre

A centre of care, creativity, and revolution has opened its doors to the residents in Salt River, Cape Town. After a long period of renovations led by a small team of mostly youth, Ntirhisano Community Centre (N.C.C.) opened its doors to the public on 1 March. 

It has been a tiring but very rewarding few months. 

Every afternoon, children from the local community come to play games, paint, read, and learn. The children have been very enthusiastic about the centre because, without it, they would be out late when their parents came home from work. When we closed a week ago to finish the last touches of the construction, they came every day to ask when we were going to open again. The children who have come so far have been very young, but a few older ones have also come, and we are working to begin political education with the older children.

We have had several meetings with organisations and people interested in working with us.  One of the organisations is called The Interim, a collective left-wing bookstore, which also organised different events in its space. Recently, the owner of the property they were renting kicked them  out. 

We met to discuss how we could help each other. We have our space that we're willing to let them use, and they have a network that could help us scale up. The meeting was productive and NCC and the organisation have agreed to work together on several projects that the members of the collective were interested in. 

Some are interested in political education, others are musicians and wanted to do events with music within the space, and others are part of organisations within Salt River that are interested in working together.

Salt River Heritage Society and Children’s Movement

NCC connected with the Salt River Heritage Society, an organisation that works in Salt River to combat gentrification and inequality, and to preserve the culture of struggle that has always existed in Salt River. SRHS does a very good job around gardens and orchards for the community, have several murals that teach the history of Salt River, and many other things. 

NCC facilitated a meeting between the Salt River Heritage Society and another organisation called the Children's Movement, an organisation founded during apartheid that focuses its efforts on children to help combat social problems. Part of this philosophy is that children should teach and help each other. 

They have many active projects and one of them has to do with teaching children how to sew. One of the things they do is menstrual pads that you can wash and use again. The director of the institute in Salt River spoke with the Heritage Society to say that many girls did not come to school when they had their period because they could not buy sanitary pads. 

The Heritage Society decided to order sanitary napkins from the Children's Movement to help with the problem. NCC facilitated a meeting to give the towels to the heritage society and explain how they work and also get to know each other. 

Salt River Community meeting

NCC also attended a community meeting about open land in Salt River and what should be done with it. The idea that the Heritage Society had was to use the land for a bookstore and a common space. But another organisation, the Salt River Residents Association (SRRA), was opposed to the idea, saying they wanted subsidised housing. 

This organisation is a bit reactionary. For example, they are opposed to African refugees entering and living in Salt River. NCC considers this request for subsidised housing was not genuine but only proposed to oppose the Heritage Society. In the end, it was decided that there would be another meeting about the bookstore, but for now, the land would be used to have a market every month. This market would be an opportunity for the people of Salt River to make a little money from their interests.

Next steps

Two weeks ago, NCC closed their doors again to finish the last of the renovations on the building and finally get the space in order. They built a kind of bar counter where  people can work. They also built a magazine rack to display political pamphlets. The last thing done was sanding the floor and varnishing it.

After the renovations, NCC has once opened and with a renewed sense of purpose, and with great ideas for the future. 

On Saturday we are going to have our official opening with all the groups that we have been collaborating with, there will also be music, thanks to some activist friends who are DJs with vinyl records.