Crossroads is one of the largest townships in South
Africa. Situated near Cape Town
International airport. It borders Nyanga, Phillipi, Heideveld,
Gugulethu and Mitchells Plain.
It began in the 1970’s when workers were told to
leave a white farm and move to 'the crossroads'. Finding only bush, they built
shacks and established a community that afforded families more scope for
creating individual, respectable homes than the hostels of Guguletu. As Crossroads was considered a temporary camp by the authorities, eviction orders were made in 1975. The battle to save Crossroads from destruction became a major battle of will between the government and the opposition movements during the late 1970s and 1980s.
Today, Crossroads is home to over 38000 people, ninety percent of whom have Xhosa as their first Language.
Project Crossroads:
On a cold wet Wednesday in August my colleague and I visited Siphamandla
Educare in Crossroads. This was my first time in Crossroads and I was a little
anxious after hearing stories about the high crime rate in this community.
The place looked crowded and it seems that there were people everywhere
you looked. Mandisa, my colleague said that this was typical of “township
life.”
Virginia, the principal of the Educare was waiting on the street and
directed us into the gated area of the school.
