A novel approach to a smooth community entry into Mitchells Plain
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Dr Tafadzwa Maramura has developed a novel way to integrate into her research community in the City of Cape Town. Through the power of social capital and networking, Dr Maramura’s research assistants connected her to Councillor Ashley Potts, one of the very few government officials available to assist his constituents via cellphone and WhatsApp. This meeting resulted in a TikTok video to introduce her to the communities where she is conducting her research.
City of Cape Town Ward Councillor Potts from the Democratic Alliance was more than willing to introduce her and her team to his constituents – the people whom she and her team would approach with her research project’s household surveys.
The role of Ward Councillors is to serve on various committees of the Council in the City of Cape Town and represent the interests of their communities across a broad range of sectors. The various committees make recommendations to Council and its structures regarding important public service and other municipal issues.
Councillor Potts has advised and cautioned the team working in Mitchells Plain (Ward 81) on the areas to avoid due to the ongoing gang wars. He also insisted that if Dr Maramura wanted to go into the community and did not feel safe, he would provide her with chaperones to guide her through it, ensuring she and her team were protected while conducting the research.
To introduce Dr Maramura and her research team to the community, Councillor Potts made a TikTok video, impressing upon her how powerful smart technology can be. He often uses his own TikTok account to communicate with the residents of his communities, which he says is “more effective in the present day, because videos go viral and reach people faster”.
In the video, he introduces Dr Maramura’s team from the University of the Free State. He says the research was an opportunity for the community to offer input on potable water and to be shown that they have a say in how their water is managed.
Councillor Potts also shows viewers a document he had issued to endorse the team and reassure the community that Dr Maramura’s team’s work was real, unbiased, and would give an understanding of how things can be done better for potable water delivery. He said his message was an invitation and an offer for locals to take part in Dr Maramura’s research, with the assurance that the team could be trusted and would provide information on how things could be improved.
He then introduced Dr Maramura to the viewers and explained that her project focused on integrating smart water technology into community-led water governance. Dr Maramura then gets the chance to explain her work to the viewers.
“We have Smart water meters that must be used by you people in the communities, the end users. We want to know what your perceptions are. It is not just about smart meters being dumped on you without your understanding of their purpose and benefits.
"We want to engage with the community to get what you say, then to merge that with what the community want and what the research says to see how that can be put in a policy recommendation,” Dr Maramura explained.
Dr Maramura’s research examines the possibility of integrating smart technologies into the city's water governance systems, with the hope of promoting a community-led system that enhances the city's climate resilience and supports a sustainable water supply.
In pursuit of this objective, the study examines the current state of water governance, explores existing and potential applications of smart technology, and assesses their impact on community-led water resilience. Using a mixed-methods approach combining desktop research, key informant interviews, surveys, and focus group discussions with community members, the study aims to advance existing water governance initiatives by incorporating smart metering, digital twin technology, and AI-driven solutions.
The document the team received from Councillor Potts includes a QR code that constituents can scan to access the team’s work. Dr Maramura said this connection was significant, since her team’s area includes gang war territory, and that safe community entry was crucial. She said smooth work with the community would lead to truly community-led input into the policy briefs that are bound to follow from her research.
Dr Maramura says the community can make or break research – that is how powerful the community is. She highly recommends that researchers include the community as key stakeholders for research with societal impact.
Mitchells Plain is a large township on the Cape Flats near Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It was built by the apartheid government during the 1970s to house Coloured families forcibly relocated under the Group Areas Act, including many former residents of District Six. The area has a longstanding and well-documented problem with gang activity, driven largely by unemployment, poverty, and the social disruption caused by apartheid-era forced removals. Rival gangs frequently clash over control of the local drug trade, resulting in ongoing violence that has made Mitchells Plain one of the areas most affected by gang-related crime in Cape Town. Read more: https://sahistory.org.za/place/mitchells-plain-cape-flats
Heidi Sonnekus (FAR-LeaF Programme)
