When you join a settlement with Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), “Residents of the Shacks,” South Africa’s powerful, 50,000 strong shack dwellers movement, you are given land to build a home. You are often given access to electricity and water, the “people’s connection,” which is bypassed electricity and water from resources provided to the non-poor. You are also expected to join the struggle.
N’dabo, a young leader with AbM who lives in and is the AbM Chairperson of a settlement called Cato Crest, told me that one of the first things that new members go through is an education process where they learn about why they are poor. The struggle of AbM is not simply to provide people housing, but to overcome a system that makes people poor and denies them basic human rights like housing. Continue reading