Woodstock Residents Association

The RAP cleaning project (Rapid Action Patrol) was started by UWRA to supplement Council’s cleaning service as Council’s service is inadequate to combat littering & dumping in Woodstock. We try to focus on dirt hotspots around Roodebloem Road, Mountain Road and clean the Woodstock Gateway.

In addition, UWRA envisaged the RAP project as a job creation project.  The RAPpers get a temporary job, money and food and eventually we hope that they move on to more permanent employment. So far the first RAPpers have already moved on to better jobs.  In this way we hope that the RAP project will also become an upliftment project.

RAP has gone through some changes since its inception.  We learned that even a small scale project like this requires hands-on management.

The project was handed over to the very competent Karen Cain, a Woodstock resident and active community member, during the course of 2008.  The project is financially supported by these Woodstock businesses: Skyrove, Cape Town Deco Lodge, Roodebloem Studios, Jamaicamecrazy and Amazing Spaces.

RAP now employs two Zimbabweans from the Haven Night Shelter. The RAPpers clean once a week and are paid R100 each per day, in addition to receiving a food parcel.

It is our hope that both of these men will find better jobs.  Karen Cain knows each one of them well and can therefore give reliable references & character witnesses.

You may be interested to know more about them:

MATTEUS

Matteus is a 36-year old Zimbabwean who fled to SA because of political violence.  Matteus and his wife Patience had to leave their 5 year old daughter, Violet, in Zimbabwe. Patience slept on the street but fortunately she was eventually picked up and taken to a Haven night shelter.

From there Patience managed to organise for Violet to be taken to Johannesburg.  The Haven helped her to have Violet brought down to Cape Town by a truckdriver.   For a while Violet stayed with a foster family in Woodstock.  Patience & Matteus recently had their second child, Antony Daniel.

Matteus is employed once a week as a Rapper.  In addition he makes & sells frames.  His business has steadily grown, in fact so much so that he has been able to move his family to a rented room in Plumstead.  

The family is legally in SA although as with the other RAPper, Divine, the bribe payable to Nyanga Home Affairs Office is a monthly expense.   The corruption at Nyanga Home Affairs has been reported on extensively in newspapers and on radio.  Matteus and Divine need to pay R300 per month, essentially a bribe to Home Affairs in return for legal residence.

Matteus would like to do a hospitality course.  In the meantime he has managed to get a stand in Simonstown where he sells his frames as well as vegetables.

The Haven nightshelter has received some funds from the Rotary Club.  With this the Haven buys good nutritious food which Matteus then makes up into daily or weekly food parcels.

If you would like to assist Matteus please buy one of his frames.  You can contact him on 084 871 5313. The frames are also exhibited at Cape Town Deco Lodge, 22 Roodebloem Road (entrance round the corner on Hilyard Street).

DIVINE

Divine also fled Zimbabwe due to political unrest and ended up at the Haven nightshelter.  Like Matteus he pays a R300/month bribe to Nyanga Home Affairs Office.

Divine has recently completed a hospitality course with Job Start, a Cape Town based NGO.  He is currently looking for a job as a waiter or barman.  However, he worked as a vet in Zimbabwe and his real love is still animals.  Divine is a responsible, caring person who has been put in charge of all the animals at the night shelter, clipping fur, defleaing and deworming them and generally looking after them.

Although still living at the night shelter, he is currently looking for a job at a hotel, guesthouse or lodge so that he can move out.

Divine would like to live on a farm and work with animals.  If you would like to assist him you could hire him as dog walker or animal sitter.  Contact Divine, or leave a message with Karen Cain at the Haven Night shelter, on tel. (021) 671 4209.

Traffic problems in Woodstock, and notably Roodebloem Road, have increased. These were discussed at the AGM in Feb 2008. Specific problems include: cars not stopping at pedestrian crossings, speeding in Roodebloem Rd, parking on pedestrian crossings (especially in front of Power Tools) and parking dangerously on corners.

UWRA has contacted Mr Frank Lock, who heads the Traffic Department for our area, on a number of occasions to enquire what the Traffic Department could do in our area. To date UWRA has received no sensible reply from Mr Lock. However, residents have noticed some activity from traffic officials very recently. The intervention has been minimal, and a far cry from what is actually required to address the behaviour that poses a genuine threat to safety.

Concerns are the increasing traffic flows through our area, along with the extra parking required by restaurant customers in Roodebloem Road, especially at night. Some people have even taken to parking in front of residents’ driveways and garages.

The Observatory Civic Association has presented a traffic management plan to Council and UWRA is contemplating if the same should be done for Woodstock. UWRA welcomes your suggestions on how to reduce traffic problems. Please post your thoughts here or send them to uwra@woodstock.org.za or PO Box 138, Woodstock, 7915.