That’s right. Hlomelikusasa is being EVICTED!
Our office is prime realty, located at the top of the main road in the Public Works Department. We occupy a small 3m by 3m room adjoined to the Traffic Department’s similar sized room. Well, it looks like the Traffic Department wants our office, and an NGO helping orphans and vulnerable children seems to be expendable in the eyes of the Public Works Department.
Hlomelikusasa office (the door on the right -- not the whole box)
Our ASAP boss was in town when we got the eviction notice, and she’s trying to make waves — what right does the Traffic Department have to demand OUR space? Of course, when confronted everyone in Traffic denies it. “Who, us? Kick you out of your office? Why, we’d never do something like that!” But they would, and they have. A dozen phone calls were made, and as usual nobody wants to take responsibility. Priscilla even drove an hour away to the head office in Kokstad this AM to meet with the movers and shakers, but apparently it’s a done deal. Traffic wants the office, and so Traffic gets it.
Public Works Department, (our office in the backround) is one of the most secure & guarded areas in town
Scilla & Boniswa were able to negotiate that 30 days is unreasonable. If Public Works can’t provide an alternate office, we can’t be completely left in the lurch. The big problem is that there is no free space in town. All the land is “spoken for” which is an odd concept alltogether. People don’t pay for land here, they simply take their case to the Chief or Head Man, tell him what land they want, and he decides whether or not they can have it. Sucks for Hlomelikusasa, because ALL the land in town is either in use or spoken for.
Andy & Gcina hard at work in our measly office.
Fikiswa & Simthembile doing officey things.
There’s a possibility of renting an office in the renovated section of the Makaula Hotel (The Makaulas are Mount Frere royalty), but we’re still waiting on that. We are planning to build new offices, but finding land that is close enough to town for all our Village Health Workers and orphans to get to is posing a difficult problem. We get a LOT of walk-ins here — people reporting cases of abuse, neglect, or death in their area — and if our office is too far out of town, those cases may never be reported.
Mama Ngule, our project manager at Hlomelikusasa
It makes you want to SCREAM!!!!! Wish us luck, and if anyone has any weight in the Mount Frere area, see if you can get us a nice piece of land in town, eh?
Update:
Talking with Public Works has just made it more clear that Traffic are indeed the ones trying to push us out. We’ve gained a month or too of time to find a new office and we’re going to ratchet up the political pressure next week. In the meantime, the office at Makaula Hotel turned out to be a shoebox for R2000/mo (OK, it’s only $200, but that’s significantly more than our flat, for example and we can’t afford it.)
