There are four million homeless people in South Africa. Nearly one million people in Cape Town live in slums or squatter settlements alone. Victoria Mxenge was the first of the housing projects founded by the South African Homeless People's Federation in the 1990s in Khayalitsha, a huge sprawling township outside Cape Town. A small oasis in a seemingly infinite sea of neat houses, a creche, an office built from old, brightly painted shipping containers and a small shop selling basic essentials. Behind it, and beyond the railway line that carries commuters into the city, the endless shacks stretch out to the distant horizon -- and the distinctive outlines of Table Mountain.
Over 70,000 very poor women belong to the Homeless People's Federation, which was founded to transform the suffering of shack dwellers in South Africa and provide them with the opportunities and choices they had been denied under apartheid. This episode of City Life tells the story of three women shack dwellers.
The producer of this program has collected extensive resources at http://www.tve.org/lifeonline/index.cfm?aid=1114.
The other titles in the series are:
1. City Life - Explores Sao Paolo in introduction to series examining the effects of globalization on people and cities.
2. The Long March - Community in Chengdu, China has organized to clean-up polluted river.
3. The Health Protestors - Health care advocates demand universal health care for the world's population at international convention in Dhaka.
4. Together Against Violence - Poor Jamaican community overcomes violence.
5. Paradise Domain - Pacific islanders are not benefiting from digital windfall or World Wide Web.
6. Pavements of Gold - Increase in urban poverty and population, caused by globalization, threatens Peruvians.
7. Doing the Right Thing - Porto Alegre, Brazil has benefited from urban revitalization.
9. Barcelona Blueprint - Barcelona today is a model of urban planning that may prove sustainable.
10. Gaza Under Siege - The Gaza Strip has been a virtual prison for Palestinians for over fifty years.
11. Waiting to Go - Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are denied human rights.
12. A Fistful of Rice - Protein deficiency threatens generations of children in Nepal.
13. Patently Obvious - International patent regulations only protect multinationals.
14. The Other Side - Poor Mexicans attempt perilous border crossing to US, often at the expense of family, traditional culture, and their lives.
15. The Miller's Tale: Bread Is Life - Efforts are underway in Egypt and Yemen to fortify flour with iron to wipe out needless malnutrition.
16. Brazil: Winning Against AIDS - Brazil has developed generic antiretroviral drugs to care for those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.
17. Missing Out - Anemia threatens the population of Niger and Tanzania.
18. Stop the Traffick - Investigates horror of child sex industry in Cambodia.
19. My Hanoi - Tour of rapidly urbanizing Hanoi, and the effect on citizens and culture.
20. Lines in the Dust - In revolutionary programs in Northern Ghana and India, gender roles are challenged, and illiterate adults educated.
21. Paying the Price - Pharmaceutical companies block generic drugs, threatening the lives of millions of Africans with AIDS.
22. Holy Smoke: Cambodians Fight Tobacco - Buddhist monks lead anti-tobacco campaign in Cambodia.
