Background of Area | Project Overview | Community Meeting | The Way Forward | ALL MULTIMEDIA

We held our community meeting at the Department of Social Development in Joza on Monday the 18th of October at 5.30 pm. It was well attended (between 25 and 30 people were present) with a good balance between youth and adults. The community members who attended were predominantly male yet the few women in attendance were very vocal. We began with a welcome, thanking the community members for their involvement and attendance. Bongani Diko from Egazini was kind enough to translate for us.

We screened our two television documentaries and then opened the floor for discussion. Mzwakhe Komsani was present and was also a main character in one of our documentaries.  He felt that the piece clearly reflected his story and the community members confirmed this in saying that is was refreshing to hear that the Egazini program is working.   

The piece on Mr. Abbas- a Pakistani Spaza Shop owner, revealed how divided the community was in accepting foreigners.  Interestingly, the members present felt that when they speak of protecting the community, foreigners are not part of their community.

We then screened the two sound slides: one on the crime related to the schools in the area, and another on the Community Policing Forum.  The screening of these sound slides generated a debate on the issue of school children being inducted into a life of crime. Community members felt this was largely because of a lack of after-school activity programmes and it was suggested that members of the community should collaborate with schools to implement more after school programmes.

After a lengthy debate we then handed out copies of the magazine (as well as projecting pdfs of the magazine) and Lauren and Kathrin explained each article. A community member then kindly translated their presentation into Xhosa and some time was spent allowing community members to page through the magazines.
We then thanked everyone for their attendance and announced that tea, coffee and snacks were to be served. We handed out DVDs with our productions on them and used the tea time effectively to mingle with the community and continue the debates on a smaller scale.