COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING AND CITY-WIDE COALITIONS
DAG has installed so much wisdom and gave us courage to tackle new things... The tools that have been shared in the ACTC course enabled us to bring change into our community
At the heart of DAG’s work is a grassroots-based approach to furthering spatial justice and socio-economic rights for marginalised communities in Cape Town and other South African cities. DAG strongly believes that key to realising collective action are strategies and interventions that strengthen the capability of marginalised communities.
DAG’s Community capacity building and City-wide Coalition programme aims to support civil society members, activists, and community leaders from across Cape Town and other cities to strengthen their capabilities, rights, roles and responsibilities, so that they are able to meaningfully participate in the urban development processes that affect them, in turn challenging the systemic barriers that reinforce spatial segregation and inequality in our cities.
Over the last 37 years, DAG has worked with over 2 000 civil society members, community activists, and community leaders from across Cape Town towards collectively developing practical solutions to urban land and housing issues at a neighbourhood, city and national level. This work has included capacity building training workshops, short courses, learning exchanges and offering tailored socio- technical support to community-based organisations to assist them to advocate for access to land, housing, and other socio-economic rights.
DAG’s Community capacity building project works to equip and support civil society leaders and young urban professionals to enable the development of more inclusive and equitable cities through active citizenry. Annually, DAG facilitates the Active Citizens Training Course, an action-oriented learning course for community activists, and community leaders across the Western Cape.
Historic projects
In the last twenty years, DAG has facilitated four different programmes, including the Active Citizenship and Participation programme, Participatory Urban Forum, Development Facilitators Training in Khayelitsha and more recently, since 2017 the Community Capacity & City Wide Coalitions programme.
Over the last 37 years, DAG has worked with over 2 000 civil society members, community activists, and community leaders from across Cape Town towards collectively developing practical solutions to urban land and housing issues at a neighbourhood, city and national level. This has included capacity building workshops, short courses, learning exchanges and offering tailored socio- technical support to community-based organisations to assist them with their advocacy on socio-economic rights, and land and housing issues. In 2006, DAG initiated the Active Citizenship and Participation programme which facilitated intensive yearlong training courses for community leaders and activists from across Cape Town. The programme was implemented over four years. DAG also facilitated an extensive number of horizontal learning platforms between communities. In 2011, DAG worked with 55 civic leaders from across Cape Town in a co-designed process called the Participatory Urban Forum. After 18 months of co-design work, this group of community activists and community leaders, collectively launched a campaign for the release of the Mowbray Golf Course and the land adjacent to the Century City mall for low income and affordable housing. In 2015, DAG implemented a two-year long Development Facilitators Training Course. The programme worked with 25 Development Facilitators from Khayelitsha through a settlement-based action-learning course. In 2017, DAG launched the Community capacity building & City-wide Coalitions programme., This programme hones in on two key areas of work that aim to strengthen the capacity of civil society groups, community leaders and activists in the Western Cape. As a part of this programme DAG launched its Active Citizens Training Course which has enrolled and capacitated 134 participants from 79 neighbourhoods since 2020. In addition, DAG has provided significant socio-technical support to 30 CBOs and coalitions from across Cape Town in their struggle to unlock land, improve access to basic services and implement joint advocacy strategies.
The trip consisted of visits and conversations with over 17 Berlin initiatives and organisations, including the Mietshäuser Syndikat (Apartment-house syndicate), Spreefeld Housing Cooperative, Zwangsräumungen verhindern (Prevent forced evictions), Kotti & Co (Tenant Community/Initiative), the Community Land Trust – Kreuzberg and Rent Moratorium. A Gatesville tenant committee member who participated in the learning exchange…rent freeze for seniors and ensuring that the provincial government scrapped rent arrears amounting to R1,6 million.
In 2015, DAG facilitated a settlement-based action-learning programme to empower 25 Development Facilitators to engage more meaningfully in the development processes within their respective communities in Khayelitsha. This project successfully demonstrated how DAG, as an intermediary, could nurture and safeguard local democratic spaces through capacitating development facilitators to cultivate and utilise participatory opportunities.
In 2013, DAG worked with 55 civic leaders from across Cape Town in a co-designed process called the Participatory Urban Forum. After 18 months of co-design work the group collectively launched a campaign for the release of the Mowbray Golf Course and land adjacent to the Century City for low income and affordable housing. This culminated in the development and adoption of a Citizen’s Charter by more than 900 participants at a public meeting in June 2013.
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