Sharing a future starts with SHARING - By looking to each other, can sharing give us what we want when we need it?
All of a sudden kibbutz is a buzz word again, with people dreaming of leaving home for a simpler existence, but kibbutzim is no longer as simple as it was once portrayed. "Here in the kibbutz, we're not neighbours – we're partners… the kibbutz movement is in a process of change in which there are many different directions. But the thing that unites all kibbutzim is mutual responsibility.” explains Amikam Osem, head of the Afikim kibbutz in Israel, who had to adapt to modern times. None the less, this concept of being partners and accepting mutual responsibility for the community sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it? Yes, we have our own little word for it: Ubuntu. The U.K. economist Tim Jackson refers in his July 2010 TED speech Tim Jackson's Economic Reality Check to Ubuntu as a philosophy that supports the changes that are necessary to create a future that is economically and environmentally sustainable. No strangers to the concept partnering, and accepting mutual responsibility, the practical solutions brought on by socialist-capitalist ventures popping their heads out in most of western Europe, northern America and the far east have been surprisingly slow to reach our shores and yet the potential to find international solutions for our uniquely African needs, can not be ignored.
POINT A TO POINT B
Public transport is economic and it has a small carbon footprint. Carsharing, a pay by-the-hour service that ensures you only get a car when you really need it, is another weapon in that arsenal. This service proved to be affordable, private, speedy and flexible in the countries where it has already launched. Yes, no more insurance, cars gathering dust in garages, maintenance services, parking fees or large monthly instalments just to have your car depreciate faster than you can pay it off.
You must be asking: “Where do I sign up?” Well, nowhere in South Africa yet. And that is the problem.
According to The Economist you can reduce car ownership at an estimated rate of one rental car replacing 15 owned vehicles by using carsharing. Unfortunately South Africa still has a distance to travel before this is our reality. One can not help to ask why carsharing is so painfully absent in a vast country where large parts of the population are completely dependant on public transport. In Johannesburg alone more than a third of it’s 957,441 residents rely on public transport. Another third owns their own vehicles, but the Gautrain has proven that many people are ready to substitute their privately owned cars for an efficient and user-friendly public transport service, even if it is just for shorter trips in and around the city.
Another untapped resource is bicycle sharing. The Mother City has taken the first few steps in the right direction. The municipality has made it safer to travel on a bicycle with over 400 kilometres of cycle lanes being created in the last four years and plans to add another 7600 kilometres is the next couple of years. This is big news for people who already own bicycles, but adding bicycle sharing systems can decrease congestion and offer an alternative mode of transport for tourists, pedestrians and car owners, alike.
Carsharing and bicycle sharing shouldn’t be seen as soft alternatives to difficult problems like congestion, pollution and public transport, but as an excellent opportunity for great minds and community leaders to partner and create solutions that doesn’t only take care of the people, but of our little blue-green planet too by fostering a culture of sharing and only using what you need, when you need it.
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| Would you consider getting onto your bike as a lifestyle choice if the infrastructure is in place? |
URBAN APPETITE
South Africans have however been taking the hint in other fields, such as urban agriculture and are now joining the revolution, but it is still in its infant stage. With urban farms already in place in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. “People have food security when they are able to grow enough food, or buy enough food, to meet their daily needs for an active, healthy life” states the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. If that is the case, a measure of economic liberation must follow if a community can produce large quantities of it’s own food needs. Why, then, have only three of South Africa’s major cities initiatives like this? Apart from feeding a community, a urban garden can incorporate a community’s organic waste in the form of compost. Eventually, according to www.urbanfarms.co.za, growing food where people live can reduce the carbon footprint by up to 90%. If “empty” spaces in cities, like rooftops, gardens and courtyards can be appropriated, the possibilities are inspiring, but as a community people will have to work together, and once again, take mutual responsibility. This, however, asks of the members to share their time and energy.
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| An urban vegetable garden in Johannesburg |
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Internationally people are fast aligning themselves with a more holistic lifestyle, by sharing and using what they need only when they need it. That very same potential becomes so much more viable in South Africa where the concept of Ubuntu rings clear. Tapping into this spirit of partnership and responsibility, coupled with strong leadership and vision, the possibilities of economic and social development in a practical and envisioning manner, are endless.
