The Architecture of Community Healing

Igama La Mi Ngingu Ifeoma - My name is Ifeoma......everyday i learn a little more Zulu:)

I just came back from a visit to "Gozololo" an orphanage and community center in the Kwamashu Township north of Durban city center. I have been told that this is THE toughest township in South Africa....either right above or right below Soweto in Joburg. It felt pretty peaceful to me while I was there. I went with a few of the community organizers that attended the Project Build workshop that I held yesterday. The Director of the center "Miriam Cele" is an amazing woman that works with a network of grandmothers in her township to provide help to orphaned children in her community. She works with grandmothers because AIDS is swiftly wiping out their children's generation leaving the grandmothers to care for their grandchildren. I am inspired by them because they are not held back by the fact that the government does not give them financial assistance. Through perseverance they were able to raise funds to develop three orphanages/community centers. Their hope is to build 50 more centers in all of the townships of Durban. These centers serve to connect the community to local health centers, and HIV/AIDS assistance. Each center is built incrementally and reflects their funding structure. As they aquire more grants the center grows. I attended one of their HIV/AIDS support groups to learn more about the work that they do..........talk about overcoming obstacles.......

on my way to the AIDS Foundation....

My trip to the AIDS Foundation of South Africa was great. I met with Mandla Nyuswa - a Project Officer who gave me some great insight into the types of programs that NGOs provide communities affected by AIDS. Most importantly we discussed the connection between architecture and organization management. Having a physical structure (and the design of the space) helps an NGO build capacity in a number of ways......

The Architecture of the Community Involvement Process

Sani Bona (hello) from South Africa!
2 hour trip yesterday to a community called Kranskop...north of Central Durban. Majority of the community is Zulu and we visited a high school in which Project build is constructing a new classroom. This was a really fun session for me to try out my community workshop tool.....legos....yes, the legos that you played with as a child. I used them with the students and it proved to be a great way to get the students to talk freely about their school and their community. I started off asking questions about how they felt about their school and about the main hospital in their community. There is a huge connection between health, education and community. Schools are used by hospitals and health centers as a way to reach the community. An NGO that works through the hospital often visits the school to provide HIV testing, awareness workshops, and training in health based fields. The school is also used by the community for church services, sports events, and community mtgs. After leaving the school I am left with the question....how do you combine the two.....create a place for health and education? Is there a need for a hybrid?.........i'll post fotos later....legos will luv it:)


Today I did a similar workshop with various stakeholders for a "Project Build" project. Community organizers, construction staff, architects and admin staff were involved in the meeting. I asked a series of questions that dealt with how the different stakeholders work together to help the community and to help each other build a project. In the end they expressed that the workshop was good for them to better understand their working relationships, and the challenges that they each face on a daily basis. A major challenge that seemed to come up was communication and funding. Communication between community members, organizers and builders. We strategized on different ways to improve that connection. ...........using legos was a great way to break the ice and allowed people to be free and open with how they expressed themselves.........it was a lot of fun..... Suzanne (Executive Director) has contacted me several times to express her gratitude for the workshop....apparently the workshop has helped her employees realize the importance of connecting with the communities that they serve........two thumbs up!

I am now at the office of an architect in Durban that uses alot of community workshops in their design process. East Coast Architects - I discovered them on the Architecture for Humanity website. They have done alot of work for Oprah's angel network....I have been told that they LOVE Oprah in South Africa...I wonder why.....back to the point...........East Coast Architects has done some amazing work involving community members in both a transparent design process, and in the building of a facility. They mentioned the importance of ceremonies in African culture and incorporating a ceremony in every part of the building process....brick making, foundation building, mural painting...etc....the more the community is involved the more sustainable the project can become...........so much good stuff.....

tomorrow I visit a AIDS orphanage, and a mtg with the AIDS Foundation.........should be good

Safe and sound in Durban

Here is a pic of the new German made stadium in Durban. A brief one hour flight and here I am in Durban, One of South Africa's major cities in the south. Durban is located in Kwa-Zulu Natal - home of Zululand!...Durban is also undergoing a semi-architectural facelift.....new stadiums, supermalls, and hotels all in anticipation of the 2010 worldcup. It is a multicultural city that has a heavy blend of African and Indian influences. It is not as hectic as Joburg, a lot calmer city. I think that the largest building is the stadium in the pic above.....the scale is so large that it doenst relate to anything else in the city. The beachfront has a very Miami-esque feel to it, but minus the tourists.......

Suzanne Edmunds - the Executive Director for Project Build helped me find a nice bed and breakfast to stay in.

Project Build is a non-profit in Durban that builds schools and community centers in some of the rural areas of Durban. They currently have some clinics in the pipeline. They are located not too far from the heart of the Durban city center. We have a community design meeting scheduled for Wednesday and hopefully we can get her staff and community members together to talk about some of the facilities that they have built. The staff seems excited about it, so I think it will be a productive meeting.

Tomorrow I will be traveling into a Zulu community to talk to high school students about their new school. moving fast.....

Star Trek and BROOKLYN comes to Jozi!

I thought that I would stand out like a sour thumb in Jozi (nickname for joburg), but everynow and then someone in the street tries to talk to me in Zulu and unfortunately I cannot respond. South Africans are so diverse that almost anyone can fake the funk:) Everyone I meet seems to have their own business. Since the ending of apartheid the government has established an affirmative action system similar to the system in the US that provides opportunities for Black South Africans to have their own businesses. If businesses are Black owned, or buy from black owned they gain points towards obtaining government based incentives. So many interesting parallels with the US. Someone mentioned that the main challenge for South Africa is that it needs to balance both first and third world issues as they relate to social/urban develoment. On top of that you can add issues of class and race.

Went out to this really great house party/40th bday party for a friend of Mandla (to the right of me). Everyone took their star trek costumes VERY seriously. Some of us just tried to look as alien as possible. A dash of silver face paint, some black clothes and voila! Instant star trek alien!We ended the nite with the electric slide which is a bit different from the US version.....maybe a little bit of Zulu style has been thrown in:)

My new found friends here took me to see Pretoria, the political capital of South Africa. Beautiful city, especially because it has a suburb that shares the name of one of the greatest places on earth! BROOKLYN!

Mandela Sisulu Clinic and the Dept. of Health

Once again I returned to Soweto today to visit another clinic. This trip was coordinated by George Kanyika - Chief Architect at the Department of Health for Joburg. He is in charge of the development of public healthcare facilities, including the provision of equipment and human resources. It was amazing how I got in contact with him and he was extremely helpful......just realized that there are no trees in Soweto....hmmmm

I got to walk around the clinic with the Architect (Noel Puta of Prism Architects) who designed it and learn about the development of the building plan and construction of the clinic....awesome! To top it off, the Managing Nurse practitioner was also there to talk to me about how the clinic is run on a daily basis. Everytime I go to another clinic, I learn a little more about poverty in South Africa and how it relates to AIDS. Talking to both the architect and health practitioner gave me a well rounded understanding of the challenges of designing/managing such a facility.

Later, I was able to pick George's brain about healthcare infrastructure in joburg. What are the ideals for community clinics? How does the AIDS epidemic affect the services that community health clinics offer? What are the different ways that clinics are intended to serve the diverse community needs? The Dept. is trying to implement more clinics to take some of the burden off of the hospitals in the area, they are also trying to provide services that are holistic, addressing issues of malnutrition, education and economic development. By the end of the conversation we were pooped.......
Here is the new stadium in Joburg for the world cup. The design is supposed toresemble an African musical instrument. The city of Joburg is amazing! The old city center and the new....there is so much development hapening because the world cup is come in 2010....new train line, new stadiums, new hotels and public buildings.....an architectural facelift......every now and then a mural about AIDS awareness....can't escape it....the problem is real.........

This weekend I will prepare to head to Durban for a week and half.......looking forward to working with an NGO there and meeting with some folks at the AIDS Foundation......

Learning about the Architecture of AIDS

Today was such a long day. Started with a long frustrating drive with a Taxi driver who did not know where he was going. Or maybe he did know where he was going but conveniently forgot as the meter was running.....but anywho....it is to be expected...cest la vie

Very fruitful morning at A3 Architects. I had a long conversation with a Project Manager(Alfonso) who is working on the redesign of a community clinic outside of Joburg. He seemed to be SO knowledgeable about the AIDS epidemic and how it relates to the development of community clinics. We had an interesting conversation about Western vs African health patterns and how it relates to primary medicine and the designing of a community clinic. Apparently clinics are programmed for health services that are related to western health problems and not the immediate needs of the community being served......deeep......overwhelmed with the knowledge I have gained so far.........

They were so helpful and eager to provide me with whatever information that I needed. I left with two building case studies that will be very helpful to my research. We also had some interesting conversations on urban design and how the design/development of Joburg was used to divide white/wealthy areas from black/poor areas through land use and infrastructure........

tomorrow...back to soweto

Back to SOWETO and the Chris Baragwanath Hospital

Looks like SOWETO is my main point of reference for any analysis in Joburg. There is so much info here, I dont even have time to see anywhere else in Joburg!

I visited the Chris Baragwanath Hospital (Phase 1 addition) today with the architects (NOA Architects)....the Principal was kind enough to let me follow them on a site visit. It close to final completion and serves as the main hospital for Soweto residents. It encompases an outpatient bldg, radiology, emergency, and a pharmacy. I attended their client meeting to discuss future phasing. Later, myself and Mr. Okpanum (Principal - the "O" of NOA) had an interesting conversation on a comparison between the challenges of working on a medical facility in a poor vs. wealthy community. The difference has alot to do with having a sense of entitlement and a platform to voice opinions. We also discussed his impressions on defining an "African aesthetic" and how it can be materialised in architecture.......... times like these I wish I could just pull out a tape recorder....good stuff.... he plans on writing a book on healthcare design guidelines in an African context......

Tomorrow, more meetings with architects of health facilities and community organizers......