Sizwe Mxobo

Work Profile

Background

• Biography

– Sizwe Mxobo was born and bred in Khayelitsha and currently resides in Mkhonto

Square, Nyanga

– He completed his Matric in 2004 at Oscar Mpetha High School, Nyanga

– In 2005 he interned at Power Construction as a civil engineer trainee

– His fascination with community development – particularly how informal

communities could be transformed to formal settlements – inspired him to study

Town and Regional Planning at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology

(CPUT). He completed his national diploma in 2011.

• University Involvements

– Chairperson of the Planning Student Society (PSS), 2009-2010

– Student assistant for Arts and Craft Programmes in CPUT, 2007

– Volunteered for Africa Unite as Human Rights peer educator.(2009-2011)

• Awards

– Community Involvement Award, CPUT Town and Regional Planning Department,

2010.

Sizwe’s accomplishments to date

• Project manager of the re-blocking projects in the City of Cape Town: – Mtshini Wam: Awarded a Gold Award at Impumelelo Social Innovations Awards 2014. This

project informed the motivation in the drafting of the City of Cape Town by-law policy on re-blocking in November 2013. It has been discussed in numerous academic publications

– Flamingo Crescent: Sizwe prepared the layout design and project managed the re-blocking of 104 structures in an informal settlement off Lansdowne Road. New

– Kukutown: Sizwe prepared the layout design and project managed the re-blocking of 22 structures in an informal settlement in Kensington.

• Partnership facilitator in Stellenbosch Municipality – Managing various projects in the informal settlement Langrug, which was awarded the SAPI

Award in the Community category at Planning African 2012 conference

– Co-design process in the WASH (Water, Sanitaiton, Hygiene) facility

• Advocacy and research: – Local coordinator of two PhD students: Tim Budge (Deakon Uni, Australia); Sophia Pan

(UCT)

– Community liaison in a UWC-PLAAS research team on social protests related to piped water service delivery

• Design and Innovation: – Team member in the Density Syndicate run by African Centre for Cities and International

New Town Institute (Netherlands)

– Facilitator of Better Living Design Challenge in looking for new housing solutions

Shifting Community mindset through Dialogue

• Host community dialogue with the Informal Settlement Network (ISN) and range of

communities, about their community development plans.

• Shifting mindset communities to understand structural poverty and government

process.

Transforming our communities through

planning and design

•Working with communities in co-create

their communities Layout and Re-

blocking plan.

• Use creative, practical and engaging

process to design community lay-outs

Building Capacity through Community Implementation

•Project manage implementation of community

re-blocking process, with the key aim of build

community capacity and community leaders

and woman lead their own process of building

up their community.

•Design implementation process that ensures

community accountability and engaging

process.

Advocating for the urban poor

Advocating for urban poor rights to

National and Provincial leaders

government officials.

Facilitating studios between communities and

university students, and ensuring outcomes of the

studios are used as tools for community upgrading

process.

Connecting Communities and Government

At the cold face of negotiation between local government and urban poor communities.

Project Highlights

• Work Experience

• Position: Community Planner at Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC) since 2011.

• Role: CORC technical support for informal settlement upgrading in areas such as community mobilization, attending and facilitating community meetings, capacity building, assisting settlements to prepare development plans, engaging City officials around service delivery and coordinating with consultants

Flamingo Re-blocking.

Dignified Spaces

Flamingo Crescent • 104 structures re-blocked into six clusters

• From 16 chemical toilets to 104 flush toilets • From 2 taps to 52 taps, shared between two households • Long term partnerships secured: City of Cape Town, CPUT, Habitat

for Humanity SA, WPI (USA) • New ECD Centres • New public spaces and pedestrian paths formally paved

Formal/Informal

Kukutown • 22 structures re-blocked in Kensington neighbourhood • From 4 chemical toilets to 22 flush toilets and taps • 40sqm erven demarcation for

each family • Long term partnerships secured: City of Cape Town and Habitat for Humanity SA •Opportunity for courtyard gardens

Conclusion.

• I think urban planning has the power to change our societies. However, this is one of

the professions that is perceived as being distant from communities, especially low

income and informal settlement communities.

• In addressing the urban problems of our times, I believe that planning should be

moving forward towards greater focus on community co-design and joint planning

• Since 2004 with the inclusion of informal settlement upgrading in Breaking New

Ground, and again in 2010 with the creation of the National Upgrading Support

Programme (NUSP) and the Presidential agreement to upgrade 400,000 well located

informal settlement households, there has been a shift towards greater

participatory planning and community capacity building.

• The National Development Plan 2040 also states that active citizenship will

transform the delivery of sustainable human settlements.

• To me, public participation is more than just attending stakeholder meetings, but a

shift towards meaningful processes of co-design and joint planning

• Since high school, I have wondered about what it would take to transform an informal

community to a formal settlement.

• My work shows how planners can should work with communities, and how this can

influence the training of the next generation of urban planners and create active

citizens