Mankayane Institutional Profile

There are so many things I can say about Mankayane. I think over the course of the past two terms, there have been no great changes. In the previous term, the council only had one female counsellor and in the current term, the is still one female counsellor. Many of our results are the same.

We had a lack of knowledge and skills before the Gender Links intervention with the council. Since then, we have been moving in the right direction, but we haven’t progressed that much. Most of the elements of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development are not fully implemented in the institution. Women still fail to uplift one another in terms of voting for other women. Gender Links was here last year around November to launch the campaign. It was needed, because the council was not gender sensitive before the intervention.

The council was not aware of gender equity and also didn’t have a gender eye in the day to day work of the council. Gender Links has brought an immerse flow of information, awareness and empowerment to the people of Mankayane. The institution was filled with people who held negative cultural norms and attitudes towards Gender equity. Since now the council is gender sensitive, it strives by all means to develop and empower the people it is serving. Evidently, there are beneficiaries who benefit from some of the projects coordinated by the council.

There is a secured market place and other mini shops operating which are provided by the council to help the people of Mankayane ease the burden in terms of unemployment. There is no restriction for permits, both men and women are entitled to own a stall in the market, but men are a minority. Furthermore, there are other public facilities provided by the council like the bus rank and recreational areas. The council has a standing fee paid daily for using these premises which is tabled at 2 emalangeni per day multiplied by the number of days in a month. The council uses the money for maintenance and other essentials of the council. These places have public toilets designated to accommodate both males and females. Moreover, there is clean running water and there is a security guard in the area.

For the institution to be able to see improvement and change, we are working by raising awareness campaigns to the public. Moreover, there is a suggestion box for the public to rate the council’s performance and comment on what changes they want to see being implemented. We also empower our staff internally to be gender sensitive.

We as a council encourage beneficiaries to form committees. They raise their concerns to us as a council through those committees, and we then work to address their grievances. The committees at the moment are as follows: Market stalls committee; Market committee; Flea market committees to name a few.

The main challenge we face as a council is funding. We do not have sufficient funds to accommodate all of our projects at the same time. In order for us to cope, we have introduced a shift system, where we do our projects partially considering the availability of resources and our budget. Furthermore, we partner with stakeholders who help us in implementing our work. We also have our own projects that generate income for the council like the bus ranks, market stalls, spaza shops, public toilets, and shops.

In order for the council to strengthen our work, we need more human capacity, more resources and funding, which is the main challenge. We need to hire more staff to be able to run the work of the council smoothly and effectively, though hiring more staff will mean more money to pay salaries and wages for the staff, so must be careful that our growth is sustainable.