LocationThe Angel Starfish Educare Centre is situated in Hout Bay, Cape Town on the boundary of Imizamo Yethu (Mandela Park) and Penzance Estate. The centre occupies part of the Sijonga Phambili Community Learning Centre. Hout Bay is like a microcosm of South Africa, with a wealthy, mainly white community, living alongside the black community in Imizamo Yethu, and so called mainly ‘coloured’ community in the township of Hangklip near the harbour. The majority of children attending the Educare Centre live in Imizamo Yethu, others come from the area called Hangklip. Both are areas of social deprivation situated in this picturesque seaside suburb. Imizamo Yethu has an estimated population of some 30,000 residents, who are mainly Xhosa speaking. The informal settlement was established in the early 1990s when 450 families who had been squatting in shacks around Hout Bay were moved to this new area on the side of a mountain overlooking the harbour. The population of the township has mushroomed since then, as people from black African heritage in search of work, education and a better future settled there. Conditions in the shanty town are shocking and have been made worse this winter due to prolonged rains that has seen much of the infrastructure in the township washed away. The majority of the residents lived in small corrugated iron shacks measuring about 9ft x 9ft. Few have running water in their homes and most are forced to share outside sanitation facilities. The trust established by Irish Businessman, Niall Mellon, has seen bands of Irish building volunteers and local contractors build around 450 homes. This work had to stop though as there was nowhere for displaced residents to go and the trust is now building in other townships. To give you an idea of how short land is, shacks are now being built between the houses erected by the Niall Mellon Trust. |
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