Cape Town man in pie-in-the-sky stunt to highlight precariousness

Feb 21, 2009, 12:09 GMT

Johannesburg - In a few hours time, a man will be lowered from the side of an office building in Cape Town, where he will have spent six days and five nights high above ground, ib a makeshift ledge.

Trevor Johnston will clamber out, stretch his sore limbs and take a running dive into the Atlantic Ocean, the sight of whose sparkling waters have been torturing him since he began his gruelling stay in the sky on Monday morning.

Johnston, 42, is the CEO of the Educo Africa charity, a member of the Educo International Alliance, which runs training and development programmes for some of South Africa's most marginalized people, particularly children.

By living for a week in a 2.5-by-1.5-metre perch, overhanging four lanes of traffic in Seapoint neighbourhood, Johnston aims to highlight the plight of people living on the edge of survival in Africa's richest country.

From his hangout, he has a birds-eye perspective of the growing gap between rich and poor in South Africa's oldest city.

'I can see a lot of people driving by and people throwing away food while young children are living rough on a piece of lawn across from the beach,' he says in a telephone interview 24 hours before his return to earth.

'It's a disgrace,' says Johnston, who hails from the Cape Flats, a sprawling expanse of townships, where non-whites were dumped by the government during apartheid.

Onboard the ledge Johnston has a laptop on which he updates a blog, a few books, a sleeping bag, some toiletries, a torch and a stove. A bucket of sand is lowered to him from time to time to collect his waste. He is tethered to the apparatus by two slings.

By day five, he has a bit of bronchitis but the nights haven't really been a problem, he says. The sun is the killer. 'It just beats down all day long,' says the mountaineering enthusiast.

While he had hoped to raise funds for Educo, by Friday evening Johnston's sacrifice hadn't elicited a cent.

'Not once cent, not even a pair of shoes for the kids,' he says, sounding deflated.

Educo Africa's profile has been boosted, however. Cape Town's deputy mayor came by for a visit, as have several journalists, and passersby, while keeping their hands in their pockets, have shouted out their support.

'If I can just change one kid's life, it will be worth it,' he says.

For more information: www.educo.org.za