The SAIA KZN Practice Breakfast with Dr Kira Erwin
Practice Breakfast
February 20, 2026
Start: 07:30:00
End: 09:00:00
Why acts of solidarity are so important for the Right to Housing in an Age of Climate Change
This talk explores how civil society, social movements and civic structures such as residents committees and rates payers came together after the April 2022 floods to develop a People’s Plan for the Right to Housing in an Age of Climate Change. It shares why building coalitions across difference is critical to tackle social justice and climate resilience. It highlights the role of participatory planning and experimentation in the built environment to retrofit resilience into the urban fabric. It calls for architects and planners to join a movement for rethinking how we decentralize infrastructure and build solidarity networks to ensure that people and planet are protected as we live through increasing severe weather events, such as floods and heatwaves.
Bio
Kira Erwin (PhD) is a sociologist, researcher, and scholar activist who, over the last 12 years, has supported social and environmental justice struggles in her home city of Durban. She is the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning co-ordinator at groundwork, an environmental justice organisation working across numerous justice issues locally and globally. Before that Kira was an Associate Professor at the Urban Futures Centre at the Durban University of Technology. She is also a member of the Durban Coalition a coalition of civil society, social movements and civic structures working together to address social justice and climate resilience in the city.
Members: Free
Non-Members Cost: Attendance is Free, R150 admin fee payable on request of CPD certificate
CPD Value: CAT 1- 0,2 credits
