A roof-high jumble of old bicycles piled on the sidewalk like a modern sculpture grabs the attention of motorists driving along Khayelitsha’s Mew Way.
The pile is made even more arresting by the shacks of wood and rusting corrugated iron that line the township’s main thoroughfare.
As part of its 2010 World Cup initiative, FIFA promised to develop disadvantaged communities throughout Africa with their Football for Hope initiative. The first one is situated in the Harare area of Khayelitsha, and offered football as a diversion from drugs and crime.
FIFA launched the Football for Hope initiative in 2005 to help improve the lives and prospects of young people around the world by funding, equipping and offering training to organisations. Khayelitsha was the first of 20 centres that were built.
In the age of tshisanyamas in the township, an entrepreneur is offering healthy food as an alternative.
An old school bus, painted black and refurbished as a top quality travelling kitchen, can be found parked outside popular township tshisanyamas and offering delicious healthy food as an alternative to plates full of braaied meat.
The night before David Mashaba (64) needs to go for his monthly checkup and collect his medication at the Gugulethu Clinic, he sets his alarm to 4am in order to get to the City-run clinic by 5.30.
Even though the clinic only opens at 7, there is already a long queue of people lined up before sunrise in the hope that, by being among the first in line, they’ll get out by 3pm, indicative of the achingly slow administrative and medical processes due to the high number of patients and low number of staff at the clinic.
The establishment of a food garden at Isikhokelo Primary school in Khayelitsha has sparked a small vegetable gardening revolution in the township.
Founder of the Ikhaya Food Garden at Isikhokelo Primary, Xolisa Banga, said he approached the school to plant vegetables on a portion of their property in 2013 in order to help feed the children and educate the community about healthy eating.
A seven-year-old Philippi girl has internalized the shame of not having a birth certificate to such an extent that she hides inside the house so that people don’t ask why she is not at school.
Upon entering the classroom at Lantana Primary in Lentegeur, Read to Rise programme manager Roscoe Williams is greeted with hugs and high fives from excited Grade Two learners.
The learners had been waiting in anticipation for their interactive reading session to begin as word spread that Williams was in the building. After three years of visiting the school, his Read to Rise programme has become a favourite activity.
Hundreds of workers of Spar retail shops in Port Elizabeth embarked on a strike accusing their employer of gross violation of employment rules and regulations. The agitated workers thronged outside the main gate where they protested while armed police kept a close watch.
It will take a long time for the poor to recover from storms that have wrecked homes, especially those in informal settlements like Stjwetla situated on the edge of the Juskei river in Alexandra.
A week of floods as a result of torrential rain in some parts of Gauteng has left many people devastated. Cars and houses were damaged. Above all, eight people lost their lives. While others are saying this is an act of God, others are blaming poor storm water drainage as the cause of the damage. Affected regions were Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.
Four men are to embark on a four-day cycle tour from Ladysmith to Cape Town in a bid to raise money to develop literacy among girls attending the Chumisa Primary school in Khayelitsha.
The 320km ride starting on 1 November, is in support of the Cape Town-based Thope Foundation, an NPO focused on supporting the holistic development of African girls, and the men, all of whom are from the Western Cape, are hoping to raise R100,000 for the Foundation’s work.
“Burn to be heard.” This chilling statement has been doing the rounds through word of mouth and social media on South African campuses in recent weeks.
The message has to be taken seriously. Buildings and vehicles at several universities have been burned since a new wave of protests kicked off in the middle of September 2016. The arsonists haven’t been identified yet, but government and university managements’ fingers are pointing at student protesters.
Some students have also used disruptive tactics to shut their campuses down until their demands for free education are met.
Universities have responded by securitising their campus; seeking wide-ranging interdicts against students and deploying private security guards.
Mzoli’s in Gugulethu is Cape Town’s most renowned tshisanyama, with locals and tourists gathering in their hundreds to enjoy the braaied meat and party atmosphere over weekends.
Now it seems Mzoli’s has some competition in the form of the Adwa and Wallacedene Cafes near Kraaifontein.
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