The Townships of The Cape Flats

Cape Town, South Africa

Overview:

The Cape Flats is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town.

It has been accurately described as the "dumping ground of apartheid" and it is here that both black and coloured South Africans were relocated and forced into informal settlements after the infamous Group Areas Act of 1950.

The Cape Flats has since been home to roughly 4 million people, much of the population of Greater Cape Town.

These Numbers Have Faces works exclusively with young people from the Cape Flats area, the majority of them from the township of Gugulethu, with others from the neighboring townships of Nyanga, Langa, Khayelitsha, Crossroads, and Philippi. 

History of the Gugulethu Township:

Located 20 kilometers outside of Cape Town, Gugulethu or ‘Gugs’ is arguably one of the oldest and largest black townships in South Africa.

Established in the late 1950’s, Gugulethu is a direct result of the South African racial segregation system known as apartheid. Apartheid (literally “apartness” in Afrikaans) was a system of racial segregation that was violently enforced in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

Photos of apartheid in South Africa:

Life in Gugulethu:

Poverty, oppression and overcrowding characterized life in Gugulethu under the apartheid rule. Schools were unequipped and under funded. The housing lacked both electricity and proper plumbing up until the 1980’s.

Currently, in Gugulethu:

30% of the community is infected with HIV/AIDS, 40% live in informal shacks, and 50% are unemployed.

These Numbers Have Faces:

Home to approximately 350,000 people, Gugulethu is generally poor with the averaged monthly income being R1100 (Approximately $110 US Dollars). The unemployment rate for individuals between the ages of 15-60 is 50%.

Living conditions in the township are insufficient. 35-40% of houses in Gugulethu are considered informal “shacks”.

HIV/AIDS in Gugulethu:

The current HIV prevalence rate in the Gugulethu community is 29%, the second largest of any township in the western cape. This translates into approximately ±95,000 HIV/AIDS infected people in Gugulethu today.

The pandemic predominantly claims the lives of adults aged 19 to 40 leaving behind children and the elderly to fend for themselves.

A University of Cape Town study revealed that almost 3.3-million children in South Africa were living with the loss of either one or both parents in July 2004.

Growing up in Gugulethu:

In Gugulethu, the pressures to join a gang or participate in crime are overwhelming. For many youth in Gugulethu, life holds two choices – becoming a tsotsi (gangster) or going to school.

It is our hope that with local projects like JL Zwane FC and the Iintombi Zilapha Traditional Dancers, Gugulethu youth will have the ability to avoid lives of gansterism and crime.

Read more about the daily lives of Anda Sozawe and JL Zwane FC Striker Michael Mfengu from TNHF’s photographer and blogger John Vicory. Read the story here.

Hope:

Despite its misgivings, Gugulethu is a place of vibrant culture and is one of the fastest developing townships in South Africa. Gugs became the first black township to have an information technology center. Ikhwezi (the Star) Community center provides multimedia classes and youth development programs.

Gugulethu also has sports fields, community centers, and schools. Sivuyile (”we are happy”) is the tourism information center in Gugulethu. It opened an art and craft shop in 1999, assisting local artists and aspiring college art students. Young artists in the community produce sculptures, ceramics, bead work, traditional clothing and textiles.

Visitors praise the township for it’s remarkable sense of community and support.

References:

Bekker 2003, “History of South Africa in the Apartheid Era.”
January, 2007. Wikipedia.com
Naidoo, October, 2006. www.iolhivaids.co.za