A vision for peace in the City of Tshwane: Insights from the homeless community

Abstract

Communities living on the margins of society, such as the homeless, are overlooked in the process of building a vision for peace in the City of Tshwane. This article, therefore, seeks to explore the issue of a vision for peace from the perspective of the homeless in the City of Tshwane. Isaiah 65:17–25 was used as a hermeneutic key, within a community engaged action research framework, to stimulate reflection and application in the context of homelessness where meaningful peace is non-existent. Emerging voices of ordinary readers (participants)of the text, as represented by the homeless in the City of Tshwane (CoT), suggest institutions (of education, business, government, churches as well as other individuals) need to work together in synergy towards the realisation of this peace in the city. In relation to peace in the CoT, this research has unearthed some insights from a local homeless community which could contribute towards the development of an integrated praxis needed for transformative urban missiology. The recommendations derived from the research are: the homeless people must be partisans to such a holistic and integrated vision for peace and should be seen as active responsible citizens of the city willing to undertake actions that are in support of this vision.

Cultivating the “good city”: The theological engagement of the Institute for Urban Ministry within the City of Tshwane

“…The knowledges and hermeneutics of the urban poor surface in Mangayi's participatory research (Mangayi, 2014;Mangayi & Ngcobo, 2015;Mangayi, 2017). The theological reflection from lived experience and Biblical study in community uncover several characteristics of the good city.…”