Youth initiative

In July 2022 ARRA was contacted by two young men who lived in the Arcadia flats. Orabile Muzi had grown up in Arcadia and had attended the Arcadia School. After being away for a few years studying in Johannesburg, he was shocked when he returned to the area. Things had clearly deteriorated badly.

At this time he met up with Willard Milazi who had recently relocated from KZN. They decided to try to do something to improve the situation. Linda Tyrrell met with them and put them in contact with some role-players in the area as well as the elected councillor. Dirk Kotze from OPERRA also met with them to give some guidance.

The result was this initiative that is trying to unite all the interested parties in the area to improve things for everyone. They need to be admired and encouraged for tackling this very difficult situation. And they do it with a real passion as well.

“The Arcadia Community Patrollers (ACP)” was born. It is owned and driven by the youth and members of the Arcadia community, intends to play a role in combatting crime, cleaning the area which we live from litter, and addressing various social issues. We believe intervention is required to prevent division of our community that will result in our main common objectives not being attained efficiently.

We believe that there are two major factors that are affecting our community negatively:

• Wide racial divides
• The COVID-19 pandemic that affected us all, whether physically or mentally.

Our aim is to attempt to overcome the negative effects of these two factors on our community. As South African youth we are challenging ourselves to create peaceful coexistence and a sense of community in Arcadia.

Our objectives in the interim phase, before the official launch of our organisation, are to invest time and effort into learning from people in the know and creating valuable networks among the people living in the area. We will focus on setting high standards to rehabilitate parts of Arcadia where necessary, working hand-in-hand with members of existing organisations who have experience in these areas. In order to reach our goals we will source innovative community projects that will promote social cohesion. Among these projects are:

• An early childhood support community project
• A neighbourhood crime intelligence network in conjunction with SAPS
• Gender-based violence intervention networks
• Projects to revitalise Arts-in-the-Park events
• Re-design and regulate informal stalls for vendors.

Current ACP affairs:

• Building rapport with and engaging the informal traders. We are encouraging them to be the champions of cleaning up litter where they trade. We plan to compensate them by creating smart vendor tables from collected plastic for their use.