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.
Highlights
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
More than just peace is needed for communities such as the homeless in the City of Tshwane (CoT), who are living on the margins of society, in order to become part of the city in meaningful ways
Using Isaiah 65:17–25 as a hermeneutic key, we seek to explore the issue of vision for peace from the perspective of the homeless in the CoT. Central to this community engaged research is the question: What will the insights be from a homeless community about a vision for peace in the CoT? We argue that these insights contributed towards the development of an integrated praxis needed for transformative urban missiology in the CoT
Summary
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. 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. More than just peace is needed for communities such as the homeless in the CoT, who are living on the margins of society, in order to become part of the city in meaningful ways. The kind of peace described by the Pope which is holistic and multidimensional, and resonates with ultimate goals for a contextual missiology aimed at transformation, if realised, will yield concrete improvements
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