About
The FLOW project is a two-year long, University of Cape Town African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) research project that took place in two South African municipalities – the Greater Kokstad Municipality in KwaZuluNatal, and the Bergrivier Municipality in the Western Cape, from August 2014 – September 2016. The project engaged out-of-work, out-of-school local youth – the FLOW Ambassadors - to build both individual and community capacity to thrive and innovate in the face of the growing challenges of climate change, resource depletion and inequality. Key activities included asset mapping, local storytelling on mobile phones, personal development, local government engagement and the introduction of two community currencies.
About
The FLOW project is a two-year long, University of Cape Town African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) research project that took place in two South African municipalities – the Greater Kokstad Municipality in KwaZuluNatal, and the Bergrivier Municipality in the Western Cape, from August 2014 – September 2016. The project engaged out-of-work, out-of-school local youth – the FLOW Ambassadors - to build both individual and community capacity to thrive and innovate in the face of the growing challenges of climate change, resource depletion and inequality. Key activities included asset mapping, local storytelling on mobile phones, personal development, local government engagement and the introduction of two community currencies.
The project was funded by the Technical and Management Support (TMS) Programme (managed by the South African National Treasury) which forms part of the Development Cooperation Agenda between the governments of South Africa and Flanders (Belgian), along with Meshfield and the Bergrivier Municipality.
This website and book tell the story of FLOW through a combination of narrative vignettes and practical descriptions of what we did and lessons learnt. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the project, alternating between youth development through fostering personal agency, increasing social cohesion, and mapping key life-supporting systems (1, 3 and 5) and money, localisation, new kinds of work and social and green enterprises (2, 4 and 6). The introduction and the final chapter (7) focus on ‘behind the scenes’. The project is brought to life through the skillful touch of writers Leonie Joubert and Mandi Smallhorne, with photography by Max Bastard, Sydelle Willow Smith, Sam Reinders and Daniel Goodman. All unacknowledged additional writing is by FLOW originators and implementers, Anna Cowen and John Ziniades.
FUNDING AND PARTNERS
A University of Cape Town African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) research project
Funded by:
The Technical and Management Support (TMS) Programme (managed by the South African National Treasury) which forms part of the Development Cooperation Agenda between the governments of South Africa and Flanders(Belgian).
Meshfield
The Bergrivier Municipality
Conceptualised and implemented by:
Meshfield
First edition 2016
Cape Town
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. More at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Anna Cowen
Anna is an architect and urbanist by training, and has spent over two decades working in social change, with a focus on regenerative and participatory design, strategy and development. She uses a whole systems design approach to craft symbiotic relationships between the built environment, local eco-systems and cultures. Anna and her creative partner John Ziniades make up the Meshfield duo that originated and facilitated the FLOW programme.
John Ziniades
John is an electrical engineer by training, and listed his first Internet company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange when he was 28 years old. With two decades and several tech start-ups behind him, he turned his business acumen to see how the technology and innovation lessons from Silicon Valley, might be applied to tackle society’s tough development and environmental challenges. He’s the currency strategist and resident ‘hacker’ on the team.
Gina Ziervogel
Gina is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, and a Research Chair at the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) at the University of Cape Town. She has managed the research component of FLOW, engaging students and finding ways to undertake applied action research that can feed into the global transformation and climate change academic community.
Joanne Lees
Jo has 25 years’ experience as an architect, housing specialist and urbanist. As a principal of Lees & Short Associated Architects she has grappled with a broad array of issues related to inclusive sustainable development and spatial transformation. In the process she has sometimes strayed away from architecture altogether. She is a member of the FLOW core team; was the Kokstad FLOW project manager, and played a crucial role in nurturing and training the Kokstad FLOW ambassadors.
Daniel Goodman
Dan, who recently relocated to London, has spent the past nine years as a designer, working with commercial and non-profit clients. He helped develop and facilitate the FLOW programme, applying his creative and technical expertise to implement bespoke, localised solutions, including the design of the two community currencies. Daniel’s ethos is to explore the role of design and technology in shaping a more positive future for all.
Penny Price
Penny is a geographer by training with extensive experience working on climate change adaptation policy and planning in South Africa. In her leading role in climate change adaptation at the Western Cape Government, she supported the development of the initial FLOW project. She later left government to work full time in FLOW Phase Two.
Dominique Vandenhoudt
Dom is a visual storyteller who started his career as a camera man working for different European news stations. Currently based in Cape Town, he founded the Media Academy, organising courses in video and mobile phone journalism.
Ian Schaffers
Ian is a small-scale farmer living in Goedverwacht in the Bergrivier Municipal area, with an educational background in Agricultural Science. His passion for the environment and working with local communities led him to his role as Bergrivier FLOW co-ordinator in 2014. He has led two groups of FLOW Ambassadors, and is currently designing a longer-term FLOW programme for the area.
Piet Bosman
Piet Bosman is a farmer, life-long student, linguist and imagineer, implementing in practical form creative ideas garnered in his studies and international travel. As Kokstad FLOW project co-ordinator he oversaw the FLOW ambassadors and worked hands-on to introduce the K’Mali to his home town.
Martine Visser
Martine is a Professor in the School of Economics, and a Research Chair at the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) at the University of Cape Town. She was involved in setting up the evaluation and analytical components of the research through co-developing the FLOW baseline survey that aimed to integrate business activities, agency, social cohesion, and resource reliance within the community, and worked with other team members and students on the analysis of the data. She was involved in FLOW Phase One.
Will Ruddick
Will is a development specialist focusing on East Africa and is the founder/director of non-profit foundation, Grassroots Economics. After completing graduate school researching high energy physics in the US, he found his passion in alternative economics and development work which brought him to Kenya. Will has developed several community currency programs across Africa since 2010 and is the founder of the award winning Bangla-Pesa program. He provided community currency design consulting services to the FLOW project during FLOW Phase One.
Where we’ve come from
Most FLOW team members met each other through working together (in different combinations) on three unconnected projects in two regions on opposite sides of the country. They discovered a shared passion for exploring practical and grounded approaches to solving big societal challenges, whilst at the same time being interested in theory. The networks of trust developed in these earlier projects laid sound foundations for the challenging yet exhilarating ride that was FLOW.
The Bergrivier Municipality’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan was created in 2012 through collaboration between the Climate Change Sub Directorate of the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning as part of their Municipal Support Programme (MSP), the University of Cape Town’s Climate Systems Analysis Group and the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, and the Bergrivier Municipality. Penny Price, Gina Ziervogel, Tracey Stone and Hanlie Linde were part of this process.
The ACDI Climate Knowledge Network (CKN) was an 18-month trans-disciplinary process initiated in 2012 and facilitated by Anna Cowen and John Ziniades, which aimed to bring together 15 UCT academics from diverse backgrounds with five local practitioners, to come up with climate and development related research questions, focused in the Bergrivier region. Gina Ziervogel, Martine Visser, Tracey Stone, Penny Price and Ian Schaffers were part of this process.
The Kokstad Integrated Sustainable Development Plan (ISDP) was funded by the Development Bank of South Africa and created by a team led by City Think Space (2012). Anna Cowen, Jo Lees and John Ziniades pioneered the Green Ambassador program during this process. Piet Bosman and Dom Vandenhoudt were also part of the Green Ambassador team.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The FLOW team would like to thank the following people for their contributions towards making FLOW a reality:
Writers Leonie Joubert and Mandi Smallhorne for their enthusiasm, skill and professionalism in helping us share our work with a wider audience. Photographers Max Bastard, Sydelle Willow Smith and Sam Reinders for their unerring eye. Editor and proof-reader Linda Martindale for her loving attention to detail and for being flexible under pressure. Graphic designer Lynne Stuart for her humour, tenacity and masterful touch.
Katrien Dejongh and Geraldine Reymenants (Flanders Government) and Sheila Edwin (South African National Treasury) for being such engaged and approachable funders; willing to push the edges, explore new ideas and re-frame ‘failure’ as ‘learning’.
Mark New (ACDI) for backing FLOW when it was merely a twinkle in our eye; Karen Fosseus and Rabia Karriem for smoothing the inevitable challenges of working with large bureaucracies.
Tracey Stone, Hanlie Linde, Stanton Booys, Whilnette Koordom and Alletta van Sittert (Bergrivier Municipality) for their unwavering support through the hurly-burly of implementing novel ideas.
Michelle Bosman for her home cooking and warm fires on cold nights in Kokstad; Teresa Olivier (TLC/Sivile) and Ken Varkevisser (SPAR) for generously allowing us to use their office spaces in Kokstad for the FLOW Ambassadors; Max Bastard for sharing his abundant Kokstad local knowledge.
Jeremy and Riétte Bryant of Kruistementvlei, Piket-Bo-Berg for their hospitality, time and adventurous spirits.
Dugan Fraser for his impeccable strategic guidance and encouragement all the way through from the earliest days of the Green Ambassador programme.
Lorenzo Fioramonti (UP and Well-Being Economy Africa Network) and Marian Goodman (Presencing Institute) for their curiousity and openness; and for sharing the project in wider contexts.
Jim Ritchie-Dunham (Institute for Strategic Clarity) for his gift in naming what is emergent; Michel Bauwens (P2P Foundation) for his courage and humility in co-hosting transitions to a commons-based peer-to-peer society; Bernard Lietaer, Thomas Greco and Tim Jenkin, for pioneering radical alternatives to the ways we think about exchange, money and realising a more equitable world.
