Each day approximately seventy children come to the drop-in centre. They get simple food three times a day, but are not allowed to sleep there and have no storage space for their (very few) personal belongings. Our intention with the postbox-lockers was both to come up with a practical solution and provide the kids with a space of their own, tiny as it might be, and at the same time use the postboxes as a sign to announce the issue of street children to the people of Durban.
Other projects around the centre were YellowL, a horizontal blackboard table, Red Game-table with three different games engraved on it's surface, and HowZit, sitting-hammocks/swings. The project was nominated for the Rotterdam Designprijs in 2009.
Cascoland Durban, in collaboration with Jair Straschnow.
Cascoland is an international collaborative project where artists and designers engage themselves in communities in order to activate and develop public space. Umthombo drop-in centre for street children was the location Jair Straschnow and myself chose to work in as part of Cascoland. There are around 3000 street kids in Durban, and Umthombo is one of the organizations working for the children. Umthombo’s work mainly focuses on ‘after care’ (bringing children back to their families) and a ‘back to school program’.
