GOOD Statement by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General and Cape Town Mayoral Candidate:
It is International Day of Play today but most of Cape Town’s children don’t have safe places to play.
Play is not a luxury. It should not be reserved for rich kids or poor kids; it is essential to all children’s physical, emotional and social development.
Yet for many children in Cape Town’s poorer communities, on the Cape Flats, public play spaces are neglected and unsafe – if any exist at all.
The City of Cape Town allocates approximately R430 million to parks and recreational spaces. Comparing the quality of the play parks in the suburbs to those on the Cape Flats points to a stark inequality in benefits to children, depending on where they live.
In the suburbs, children have a ball in safe, clean and well-maintained parks, with modern jungle gyms and rubberised surfaces designed to protect them if they fall.
In less privileged areas across the Cape Flats, I have seen the diametric opposite: Derelict play parks, abandoned recreational centres surrounded by dangerous streets in communities deprioritised by the City government.
Just yesterday I was in Wesbank and saw a jungle gym surrounded by sewage and rubbish – that was the park. With nothing but hard concrete for children to fall on.
In the south, in Capricorn today, I saw the only formal sports facility, Italy sports grounds, in total disrepair. Calling it a sports ground isn’t accurate, it’s a disgrace.
The absence of decent recreation, sports and play facilities contributes to the maintenance of fertile environments for gang recruitment of children.
Besides gangsterism are children’s constitutional rights to be safe from injury or loss of life. These rights are not protected in dangerously deteriorating public facilities.
The unequal distribution and maintenance of recreational infrastructure reflects a broader pattern of spatial injustice that continues to shape Cape Town.
Where you live matters and where you play matters, too.
The GOOD Party commits itself to continuously push the City of Cape Town to prioritise investment in parks and recreational facilities across the Cape Flats.
This includes providing social amenities, upgrading equipment, improving safety standards and ensuring that every child has access to quality public spaces.
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Retromirage
Van der Merwe is approached by SANRAL one day who want to build a new highway through his donkey farm. Van is really concerned with how his donkeys can get from one side of the farm to the other without having to cross the highway and risk being injured or killed. He is promised that they will build bridges the highway so that his donkeys can cross under the highway. Van agrees and gives them the go-ahead.
The highway is built and a year later the same rep goes to the farm to go see how Van and his donkeys are. He eventually finds Van under one of these bridges chipping away at the roof of the tunnel with a hammer and chisel.
\”Mnr Van de Merwe, what are you doing damaging the highway bridge?\”