The Westville Residents' Support Group (WRSG) is an association of people which crosses all the usual boundaries which so often divide South Africans from one another: politics, culture, race and religion. Members belong to the Jewish, Gentile, Moslem and Hindu faiths. Yet WRSG members have two important aspects common to all:

They are all residents of Westville; and all believe that the Group Areas Act is morally wrong, economically and socially restricting to all 'racial groups', and therefore must be abolished.

The aim of the Westville Residents' Support Group is to replace the fear that 'racial groups' have about living in proximity to, and sharing facilities with each other; with the reassurance that comes from knowing people as neighbours, rather than as stereotypes.

Westville is a solid, middle-to-upper class residential area. This will not change when the racial and religious composition of the Borough alters substantially. The 'community' envisaged by WRSG is a community of common areas of residence, linking people of similar standards of living, interests, values and norms. WRSG itself is a micro-cosm of such a community, and its members have all been enriched by the experience of working with, and socialising with each other.'

Since the emergence of WRSG in mid-1987, the Group believed that the majority of people who live in Westville shared the perception that the Group Areas Act is unnecessary and must go. To find out more aboutwhat Westville thinks about the Act, WRSG cooperated on a Survey conducted by Research International in conjunction with the Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit of the University of Natal. The results were extremely encouraging, and justify WRSG's optimism. Some of the highlights of the study are presented below.

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