South African Unemployed Peoples' Movement

[2] On 15 July 2009, the movement announced that it would begin appropriating food from supermarkets in Durban if the state did not agree to consult with it on its demand for a basic income grant of R1,500 per month for all unemployed people.

Nozipho Mteshana, then the chairwoman of the movement, said that the appropriation of food in supermarkets would continue despite the arrests.

[7] The movement has, working together with Abahlali baseMjondolo, also organised a number of protests from the Zakheleni shack settlement in Umlazi, Durban.

[19][20] Its current chairperson is Ayanda Kota[21] and the Grahamstown branch works closely with radical students.

Its formation represented a collective recognition of the appetite for self-emancipation, and without self-organisation, the unemployed in Grahamstown might as well have remained on the margins of that divided small town.