About the Seaboard CAN

We are residents of the Atlantic Seaboard, Cape Town, who have come together to support fellow Capetonians during the Covid-19 crisis.

The Seaboard CAN was established on the 24th of March, the eve of South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdown. Concerned residents rapidly found each other and started mobilising to support vulnerable people in our neighbourhoods and our networks.

We were concerned about fellow Capetonians who were not able to prepare for the pandemic by stocking up on food or sanitation supplies. As the lockdown has continued, many families have lost their income. We understand that the need is far greater than the government can provide for, and have chosen to act together.

Our response is not to wait,
but do what we can.

Members of our CAN come from different parts of the Atlantic Seaboard. We bring together filmmakers, administrators, educators, managers, nurses, koeksister aunties, soccer coaches, carers, artists and more. Most of us didn’t know each other before, and we’ve grown into a 130-member strong Whatsapp group. The Seaboard CAN is part of the much larger Cape Town Together movement. 13 000 Capetonians have self-organised in 150 autonomous Community Action Networks like ours.

Seaboard CAN partnerships:

︎We are partnered with Ahmed Kathrada House / The Helen Bowden Nurses Home in Granger Bay, an occupied nurse’s home with no electricity or running water. AKH houses 500 low income families who could not afford rentals in the rapidly gentrifying surrounds. It is home to children, nurses, care-givers, supermarket employees, sex workers, domestic workers and casual labourers. Some of us have previously worked with AKH to support campaigns for well-located inclusionary housing.

︎Gugulethu-Seaboard CAN Partnership was one of the first inter-neighbourhood CAN pairings through Cape Town Together. The ︎Gugs CAN supports Gugulethu, a working class suburb of approximately 25 000 people. Average monthly household income there is under R3000, and over 60% of the working age population is not economically active. The Gugs CAN is led by activist Pamela Silwana, whom some of us know from our work on unemployment.

︎ We also work with food kitchens and shelters that serve the area’s homeless population. These include Ladles of Love, Souper Troopers, Amanda Hattingh from the Sea Point Congregational Church and Lesley and Peter Wagenaar. Some are NGOs that have been supporting and caring for the homeless for years and are now preparing food for thousands. Others are caring individuals who stepped in where they saw a need.

The Seaboard CAN projects are funded by donations raised through fundraising.
All illustrations kindly volunteered by Retha Ferguson.

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