Communities are strongest when they lead their own change.
For twenty years, Safe Cities has equipped young people and families across Elsies River, Bishop Lavis, Manenberg and Atlantis with the skills to build the future they want.
Started by residents who refused to wait for someone else.
Safe Cities was founded in 2006 by community residents and religious leaders. We surveyed our own neighbourhoods — Bishop Lavis, Manenberg, Atlantis — and heard the same things back: drugs, unemployment, school dropouts, petty crime. We've been working on them ever since.
Our mission
To teach communities to participate in social development, empowering and educating youth so that we can identify problems and develop solutions together.
Our vision
That every individual has the opportunity to be trained and equipped through skills and social development — with leadership, self-sustainability and community upliftment at the core.
Five programmes, one aim
Each programme meets a need our community told us about. Together they reach children, women, young adults and job seekers.
Capacity Building Theatre
Discipline, self-respect and responsibility taught through the performing arts — life lessons that equip children to thrive.
Women Empowerment
Empowering women of all ages to confront inherited patterns that hold them back — mentally, physically and emotionally — and to find their own worth.
Young Leaders
Self-awareness, communication, public speaking and professional conduct — developing leaders ready for an evolving society.
Permaculture
Hands-on training in indigenous plants and animals, and in how to nurture and develop the environment sustainably.
Construction Skills
From making clay bricks out of raw local materials to building, roofing, tiling and painting — practical skills that lead to work.
Bring a programme to your school or community
We partner with six schools across the Cape Flats. We'd like to work with more.
Talk to usR250 keeps a child in theatre class for a month.
Every contribution — large or small — lets us reach more people, run more programmes and keep our doors open. Give once, or join the monthly supporters who make our planning possible.
Donate nowWe don't do this alone
Twenty years of work built alongside schools, community organisations and international partners.
