Rustenburg community monitors first session

The Rustenburg monitoring school had its first session on the 14th of April 2012 at the Bafokeng Land Buyers Association offices in Rustenburg.  In this picture we have activists from seven mining communities namely: Marikana, Bapong,Ikemeleng, Luka,Tlhabane,Chaneng and Mafenya, this communities are directly affected by platinum and chrome mines.

Thru the monitoring school activists will learn how to observe,analyse and act upon the activities of the companies operating in their communities and the goverment’s poor service delivery.The programme has two phases in a period of six months, in phase one(April to June)-monitors will develop writing, research,analysis,strategy,Internet and critical skills, phase two(August to October)-monitors will be applying the skills they developed in phase one into action, working in groups to do a research project.

The session session in action.

The introduction took place and programme content was presented,monitors were officially welcomed.Rules were set out and the session took place. Monitors had an activity on writing skills( free writing tool) They had a bit of difficulties on the first try, but on the second round they found it fun and liberating.
“I WRITE WHAT I LIKE”

The second activity was on research skills (time line mapping) Interesting stories came out of this activity and the level of participation was overwhelming as they went down memory lane on both their personal and community history. by the end of the activity we had learnt a bit about each other and where we come from and realised we are having similar problems in one or another.

Had a discussion  about what does it mean to an activist and a community monitor, participants gave their meaning of the term  activist,: an activist is a selfless, active, action taker who puts the community interest before his or hers. a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step and the Rustenburg community took their first few steps on the 14th of April.