This weekend I’m sure I wasn’t the only one imagining what the M3 and other major routes around the Cape Peninsula would be like if hordes of people ditched their cars and cycled to work on Monday morning. I took part in the Cape Town Cycle Tour, which is one of those eye-opening experiences that […]
Marcela Guerrero Casas
Born and raised in Bogota, Colombia, Marcela Guerrero Casas is passionate about cities and public space. Marcela holds a master's in public administration and international affairs from Syracuse University and has worked in policy and advocacy for over a decade.
Marcela moved to Johannesburg in 2006 and worked in Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Kenya before moving permanently to Cape Town in 2011. In 2012, Marcela co-founded Open Streets, a citizen-led organisation working to transform how streets are perceived, utilised and experienced. Marcela is also a co-founder of SUR Collective, a platform for cultural exchange between Latin American and sub-Saharan African countries. In 2015, Marcela was one of 200 Young South African achievers recognised by the Mail and Guardian
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle
Mitchells Plain: Making the road as we walk
“Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.” Antonio Machado My dad, though still sceptical of social media, has increasingly warmed up to Facebook and recently left a comment on my timeline referencing Machado’s poem (above). He said: “It seems you and your […]
Posted inEnvironment, General
Going public in our homes
Many protest that public space is becoming privatised and, as put by Anne-Marie on her blog, some argue “big city public spaces turn out to be extended private spheres”. I would like to think it could actually be the other way around: our private space could be an extension of our public life. Our individual […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Peace is not an event
Over the weekend I watched Particle Fever, a documentary that follows six of the 10 000 scientists who joined forces to build the Large Hadron Collider and find the so-called “god particle”. It was a long-term experiment initiated in the 1990s that was successfully completed in 2013, nearly 50 years after the existence of the particle […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, Lifestyle
My memories of the automobile
I will never forget the smell of the seats in our “brand-new”, second-hand car. My parents’ purchase had been a hot topic for weeks and it was finally there, a dark green Renault waiting outside my school. Unaware that a few years later it would be driven over my toe, nothing could bring more joy […]