The legacy of Eastridge: Community activism that empowered lives

With just under two months left until the end of 2025, time is edging closer to Mitchell's Plain's 50th anniversary. This week, we turn the spotlight on two non-profit organisations that made a significant impact in the Eastridge community.

When residents moved to Eastridge in 1980, parents had no day-care facility for their children.

Seeing the plight of the community, veteran community worker Beatrice Roberts and a group of residents rallied together and opened the Leadwood Educare Centre in 1981.

The educare centre, which closed down in 2021 after 40 years of serving the community’s children, was a much-needed facility where children could learn in a safe space while their parents were at work.

Ms Roberts, 80, fondly known as Aunty Beaty, and her late husband, Ronald, had moved into the area from Hanover Park that same year. Leadwood Street has been their home for 44 years.

Mr Roberts passed away on January 18, 2025.

During its early years, the Leadwood Educare Centre’s premises doubled as the meeting grounds of the Eastridge Residents Association, which was instrumental in representing residents' interests during the 1980s and 1990s.

It was during this time that Ms Roberts crossed paths with revered anti-apartheid activist Theresa Solomon, 79, who died on Monday, July 7, 2025.

“I met Theresa 40 years ago at the Eastridge Educare Centre. She was the diligent concert organiser and worked with us for a few years.

“We became close friends because of these events, as she was the professional in that regard. She guided us.

“She was living in Woodlands and was a part of the Woodlands People’s Centre and helped us with our concert and graduation,” she said shortly after Ms Solomon’s passing.

Although soft-spoken, Ms Roberts, like many other Eastridge and Beacon Valley mothers, defied the apartheid government countless times during the 80s and 90s.

Many of them met through their children, who were involved in the student uprisings in Mitchell’s Plain.

Serving on the Eastridge and Beacon Valley civic associations, she and women like Mary September, Dilshaad de Vries, and the late Vera Sharneck had many heated encounters with the authorities.

They often helped families move back into their homes after they were evicted because they had fallen on hard times and couldn’t pay their municipal accounts.

“All the moms exchanged numbers, and whenever something happened, we would call each other. We reconnected the water and electricity of people whose homes were disconnected by the council and put people back in their homes when they were evicted.

“We would go around borrowing keys from neighbours because in those years, the keys all fitted at the various homes,” the late Ms Sharneck said in an interview with the Plainsman last year.

Ms Roberts, who is also the founder of the Leadwood Seniors Club, said she has no regrets about that period of her life.

“I never regretted my decision because the association did many things to help people who were evicted from their homes. Sometimes we would put them back into their homes in the middle of the night,” she said.

Leadwood Seniors, which is in its 25th year of serving the elderly in Eastridge, meets at the Town Centre library on Mondays.

Several other organisations also played a pivotal role in the empowerment of Eastridge residents and the greater Mitchell’s Plain community, including the Mitchell’s Plain Advice Office and the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders (Nicro).

The Mitchell’s Plain Advice Office, previously known as the Mitchell’s Plain Crisis Committee, was first housed in the Town Centre in the 1980s, while Nicro operated from Palestrina Street, Eastridge.

The local branch first operated from a house in Peugeot Crescent, Beacon Valley, in the 1980s, said Norman Jantjes, former director of Nicro Mitchell’s Plain.

“This was long before the elections of 1994. Before we opened the building on Palestrina Street, we did a survey in Eastridge and Beacon Valley.

“We asked the community what our new building should be called and ran a competition in the Plainsman. They decided on Nicro Community House,” Mr Jantjes said.

Nicro Mitchell’s Plain offered various services and programmes, working especially with parolees from and youths at risk with the law.

“Nicro essentially helped all the paroled prisoners reintegrate into communities. We used to have a bus on a Sunday taking families to their loved ones in prison. I would also go and see the prisoners before they were released on parole.

‘We used to take the youth on camps, some we took to Chrysalis Academy and others on holiday programmes. Later on, we started with entrepreneurial skills development, on how to start and run a business.

“People like Theresa Solomon, Johnny Issel and student leader Siraj Ebrahim, who died in an accident outside Worcester, held meetings there. On one occasion, the police raided the place.

“Journalist Crystal Orderson, who grew up in Mitchell’s Plain, volunteered at the organisation when she was still at school.

"People like Dilshaad de Vries have also served the Eastridge community faithfully, as a former ward councillor and on the first women's business forum, to name a few,” Mr Jantjes said.

Nicro Community House also housed sports, arts and cultural programmes, including karate and isiXhosa classes.

“Convicted criminal Norman Afzal Simons taught Xhosa lessons to community members during the early 90s. He was arrested leading up to the elections,” he said.

While the national organisation still operates today, the Mitchell’s Plain office, which ran independently, closed down several years ago, Mr Jantjes added.