Phumelele Mkhize and Trang Luu Freshly cooked mealies (corn-on-the-cob) are an essential Durban street food staple – they’re healthy, affordable and conveniently accessible to the local commuter population. Over the years, the preparation of mealies in the inner city has developed incrementally- from the hazard of large open fire cooking on city pavements, to a designated site … Read more
The challenge: informal worker mothers Roanne Moodley 74% of informal workers (or traders) in Sub-Saharan Africa are women (WIEGO). Pregnant women are among the most vulnerable of these, facing socio-economic and physical obstacles to their maternal health throughout their pregnancies. After giving birth, they often have to choose between earning an income to financially … Read more
Roanne Moodley Phil Mashabane, the 2017 Africa Architecture Awards ambassador, in his inaugural written piece about this year’s Awards, said that “Local people take their knowledge for granted; it’s part of their daily lives… This creates important space for dialogue – critical dialogue” This was the first year that the “Critical Dialogue” category was included … Read more
Tasmi Quazi Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) was recognized by the Curry Stone Design Prize amongst 100 “most influential socially engaged design practices” referred to as the “Social Design Circle”. As one of the few award platforms that has consistently highlighted the role of inclusive urban design, the Curry Stone Prize has probed deeper by looking at … Read more
Tasmi Quazi As AeT concluded 2016, it provided the opportune moment to reflect on our organisation and our work. We identified over 20 things on a list, but will share the top 16, wide-ranging events and project work which have impacted and continue to impact the organisation: 1. Cape Town @Work: AeTs’s replicability AeT delivered … Read more
Phumelele Mkhize & Tasmi Quazi The responsibility of designing and producing useful urban infrastructure in the city is assigned to professionals and governing authorities. What would it mean to let the users be shapers of their own spaces and infrastructure? During his internship with Asiye eTafuleni, Mongezi Ncube, investigated the self-built tables of traders (also … Read more
Tasmi Quazi Kanyenathi, the Comic-Relief funded project of three years to be implemented across three informal economy districts in Durban, kicked off in October 2014 with a series of community meetings. From January till July 2015, a major project activity – which was the training for and implementation of the infrastructure audit – was completed. … Read more
Tasmi Quazi The first in the four series article presented our work in the field of design. The second in the series will reflect on our work in the field of research, or what we call “urban intelligence”. Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) works to deepen knowledge on the informal economy (i.e. street traders, waste pickers etc.) … Read more
Tasmi Quazi Asiye eTafuleni’s (AeT) award-winning approach involves work in the following areas; design, urban intelligence, education and advocacy. Emanating from these key themes are projects, programmes and activities. This four-series article will elaborate some current examples being carried forward into 2015. The first in the series will reflect on our work in the area … Read more
