Howick, KZN

Originally published: 24 March 2024

Even with its famous waterfall and its tourism charms, the Midlands town of Howick has over the past two decades seen a downturn in tourism, leading to many struggling businesses calling it quits. It’s added to a cycle of increased crime, deterioration of infrastructure and lack of maintenance. Nine years ago, a local resident decided that Howick deserved more love and had to have more love to give to revive the town. Love Howick was formed as a platform with a focus on addressing a range of needs and building partnerships for the benefit of the whole community.

What was the problem?

The town of Howick, founded in 1850, is steeped in history and is located in a part of KwaZulu Natal known for its scenic beauty. But over the past two decades the town has deteriorated and started to slide into degradation and the curse of crime and grime.

As tourism dwindled, businesses left the town, adding to more unemployment, more crime and further decline.

The Sowetan reported in 2019 of businesses signing a petition to compel the uMngeni municipality and Department of Tourism to put the Howick Falls back on the map. Locals organised clean-up events hoping to protect infrastructure and give the area a makeover, but the impacts were short-lived.

How did they solve it?

A local resident took a decision in 2015 to set up Love Howick. Matthew Hogarty founded the platform with a vision to create partnerships for key sectors in his community. It included Hogarty’s pillars of church, family, government, education, business, media and the arts.

Over the years, the projects have come to include what Hogarty calls the Dream Centre that offers skills training and support for the unemployed; a recycling programme; a clothing provision outlet; and an environmental upliftment and clean-up initiative called Renoverge.

There have also been urban gardening projects, a grief and trauma counselling service and a positive news and media campaign to elevate successes rather than to dwell on the negatives.

Love Howick has kept going through the years by building relationships across the community and through responding to the varied needs in the community.

Hogarty, quoted in The Witness, said of the project: “We desire to bring hope to our communities and that is only going to happen when we put aside petty politics and start working together with action that results in measurable change.”

Some of their successes recorded for the 2023/2024 period include training 555 job seekers, creating 197 jobs, supporting 60 entrepreneurs and having 238 volunteers donate 11,424 hours to Love Howick projects.

They cleared and cleaned up 2.2 million square metres of public land, planted 1,086 trees and cleared over 380,000 invasive alien plants. They also collected, sorted and recycled 51,895 tons of waste.

So how did they do it:

• One person put into gear his plan to restore hope for his hometown, but it had the intention to reach as many people in need as possible in Howick. To do this meant having a plan that included running several coordinated programmes running simultaneously but each with specific focus areas.
• They built a presence. They started with one project at a time that could demonstrate success, create interest and then attract funding.
• They focused on funding through donations, also corporate sponsorships and partnerships. This ensured funding for long-term sustainability.
• They built an online and social media platform. The online platform gives information and updates on the various projects, on ways to donate and a section on profiles on people in the town looking for work.
• They generated media attention of projects to keep Love Howick in the public eye and to have traction and network-building beyond the KZN town.

Get your community involved

Is there a community-driven group or caring business in your area? A dedicated group of committed people can effectively solve local problems.

Think about starting or joining community groups like a street WhatsApp group, residents' association, or community policing forum (CPF) to get help and to stay informed and involved in local issues.

• How to set up a community group link
• How to start a WhatsApp group link
• How to start a residents’ association link
• How to set up a community policing forum link
• How to set up a neighbourhood watch link
• How to organise community action link
• How to use media to create pressure for change link

Know your rights – how local government works

It’s important to understand how your local government works so that you can work with them to support what they are doing while your community continues to keep them accountable and deliver services on time. Remember you have a constitutional right to many of the services provided by local government, as well as to accountability and transparency, wherever you live and regardless of how much you earn. It is also where money collected from taxes and rates goes.

Acknowledgements

Author: FixLocal Reporter

Original articles/ sources:

Love Howick celebrates partnerships for positive change

witness.co.za/news/2024/05/24/love-howick-celebrates-partnerships-for-positive-change/

www.lovehowick.com/

Photograph: Love Howick

For more information/ further contact details: email info@lovehowick.com or call 033 940 5075