Westlake sits in Cape Town’s southern suburbs, surrounded by wealthier neighbourhoods. It is home to Sunbeam Crèche and to the families whose children learn there.
What the research found
In 2008, the urban researcher Charlotte Lemanski published a study of a former informal settlement in Cape Town whose residents moved into formal state housing, drawing on Westlake’s own housing records. The houses arrived without residents having been organised into the process. Because they had not had to come together to win their homes, the study found, the community had not built the collective capacity and leadership it later needed, and it struggled to consolidate afterwards.
Her title says it plainly: houses without community.
The lesson for Flow
It would be easy for a foundation to make the same mistake: arrive with a plan, deliver a programme and call it impact. We want to do the opposite. Before Flow starts anything new in Westlake, we intend to listen first, through open sessions, a residents’ forum and a short survey, with consent, so that residents set the priorities.
We also want the neighbours to be part of it. Schools, businesses and families in and around Westlake each have something to offer, from mentoring and work placements to a mixed-neighbourhood football league. The aim is simple: show what is possible when a whole area pulls in the same direction.
Live, learn or work in or around Westlake?
Tell us you would like to be part of it, as a resident, a school or a business. We will be in touch when the listening sessions are set.