November 2007
Building Futures in Cape Town - Don Mullan
Just before leaving for the Great Wall of China Trek, I was invited to help in the building of some 200 houses for poor township dwellers in the outskirts of Cape Town. The invitation came from Niall Mellon, the founder of the Niall Mellon Township Trust; a charitable organisation which aims to build thousands of homes for the poorest of South Africa’s poor, currently living in shacks.
I had heard of Niall Mellon bef ore and first saw him a year or two ago on the Late Late Show with Archbishop Tutu. On 2 nd November 2007, I became one of a ‘Mellonite’ Army of volunteers who flew from Dublin and Shannon on four chartered jets. In total we were 1,380 men and women, the maj ority bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, plasterers, roofers and joiners, whose ages ranged from 16 to 72. The professional classes among us became their labourers, spending a week carrying blocks and buckets of cement to enable the completion of 200 houses f or township families whose shacks enclosed our building compound.
It was a logistical challenge of military proportions and run with the same precision of an army going to battle. However, as we marched into the township of Freedom Park, Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town, the only weapons we carried were builder’s tools. What made this – Mellon’s fifth consecutive building blitz – so special, was the fact we were making history. We were part of the biggest mass movement of peacetime volunteers in the history of Ireland.
Our arrival was eagerly anticipated by hundreds of township men, women and children. They lined the streets to cheer and clap our arrival. Some carried simple placards and signs with the painted words ‘Thank You Ireland’. Many rushed forward to shake our hands and hug us.
In truth, I was so overwhelmed I shed tears at the thought of what these poor people had endured during the darkest years of apartheid. To me, their dignified resistance to one of the most vicious and degrading systems humanity has ever known filled me with awe and admiration. I told several of the adults I got to know during the week that it was I who felt grateful to them for the hope and inspiration they had given to the world. It was, after all, these same people who gave humanity the mighty giants of moral integrity in Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Nelson Mandela.
The work ethic of Mellon’s foot soldiers was inspiring. Day after day they rose, sometimes as 5am, and took early buses to our building site. Some may have only had three or four hours sleep, yet they loyally turned up f or w ork, determined to complete the challenge bef ore them.
As well as builders and ‘professional’ labourers, each team had an assignment of helpers who ensured that no one would become dehydrated or sunburnt in the potentially sc orching summer weather. Water and sun protect or were in plentiful supply, although, in our case, it appeared we had brought unseasonable Irish weather with us. Squally showers and high winds b ore across us f or half the week.
The highlight of my experience was an encounter with a young Muslim family whom I had spotted watching us build from the moment we arrived on site. I first approached them on the afternoon of our first day and discovered they had been assigned house number 127 which was part of the orange zone.
Ismail Lakay and his wife Insaaf, have five children: four girls and one boy. Nuraan and Nurshaan are twins, aged 12. Ayeesha is 7, Narushaan 6 and their son Yaseen is 2. Their shack stood next to the perimeter fence.
“It is my dream,” Insaaf told me. “To have a house for my children is my dream. To have running water is a dream. I suffer severe pains from having to carry heavy water for long distances. It will be a blessing. And to have a toilet and shower will ensure our dignity.”
Their shack, like the hundreds of shacks that sprawled across Mitchell’s Plain, was made of bits of wood, corrugated iron and plastic, often retrieved from dumps. Ismail had built it in such a way that it included a small kitchen area, a bedroom for himself and his wife and a separate bedroom for their five children. Despite the horrendous conditions, Ismail and Insaaf kept its interior beautiful and clean. Three framed pictures with quotations from the Koran declared the greatness of Allah and sought the blessing of God for their family and all who entered their home. These were very gentle and kind people who lived in harmony with their Christian neighbours. They had a handsome compliment of cats which, I suspect, were not just domestic pets, but feline watchdogs housed to keep their children safe from mice and rats.
I left Cape Town with a deepened respect and admiration f or Niall Mellon. Quiet spoken, while he copes comf ortably with the media, one senses he is ill at ease when attention is focused on himself and he is happy to deflect attention onto his proud volunteers.
Mellon has touched a deep ch ord in the Irish consciousness. His volunteers and their supp orters like the tangible impact their eff orts directly make on the lives of the po orest of the po or. Next year the response to his call f or volunteers is set to break this years rec ord. Indeed, so inspired am I with the w ork this charity is doing, I have already recruited five new volunteers within my wider family circle. That is due to increase to at least 10 and possibly m ore in the near future.
During this trip, not only did I take some beautiful photographs, but really experimented with the video facilities of the Nokia N73 and N95. I intend uploading a 10 minute video in the next month or so, based on the footage I shot. When I told fellow volunteers that I was making a documentary on my mobile phone, many were incredulous. That was, until I showed them back interviews I rec orded with them. This will be an inspiring video and through it, I hope that you too might be interested in helping and possibly volunteering f or the Niall Mellon Township Trust.
Don Mullan
