How a Cape Town group is helping neighbourhoods fight Covid-19

Graphic of coronavirus. Source: Scientific Animations via Wikimedia

The Cape Town Together Community Action Network is an initiative that has been setup to help communities respond to Covid-19. Its purpose is to create a database that will help organise non-medical responses in different communities and areas.

Cape Town Together acts as a support system that will guide self-organising response communities. For example, once you sign up and fill in your neighborhood details, Cape Town Together will assist you with getting into contact with others in your area.

These responses may include phoning people to ensure that they are still fine, organising “grocery clubs”, donating supplies, or setting up hand washing facilities. The responses also depend on how neighborhoods choose to act.

Leanne Brady, a member of Cape Town Together, said on 20 March that over 450 have signed up to the initiative.

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Local neighbourhood initiatives

“The goal of Cape Town Together is to sprout a number of local neighbourhood initiatives. This local initiative or CAN (Community Action Network) will be organised at the neighbourhood level but also will be connected to the broader network,” said Brady.

Brady also said that the response has been “amazing”. Walmer Estate has organised “a neighbourhood mapping exercise to identify who needs help and who has resources to share”. This means that lower risk people can organise to deliver groceries to elderly people in the neighbourhood.

“The Muizenberg Community Action Network is getting going by setting up hand-washing stations by the train station, and is looking at setting up a hand-sanitiser factory in a pottery studio,” said Brady.

“We are all in this together, and need to share resources across the city. We will need to both act locally, and share lessons and resources with each other along the way,” said Brady.

Brady also explained that the Cape Town Together networks are mostly for non-medical needs and these initiatives will follow the guidance from the Department of Health.

Khayelitsha-based activist group Social Justice Coalition has put together pamphlets in multiple languages with essential information on Covid-19. Plans are afoot to distribute these safely.

The Cape Town Together sign-up document can be accessed here.

Article originally published on GroundUp.