Cape Town train improvements a slow chug
Commuters like the two new ‘people’s trains’ but still have to deal with delays and no-shows, safety issues and their employers’ ire when they’re held up getting to work.
Stories by: Barry Christianson
Ukucotha kokuphuculwa kwehambo ngoololiwe eKapa
Abakhweli bayabathanda aba ‘loliwe babantu’ batsha kodwa kusafuneka bejamelene nengxaki yokucotha nokungafiki kwabo, imiba yokhuseleko nomsindo wabaqeshi bakufika emva kwexesha emisebenzini.
The athlete that God fuels
Circumstances have denied Keegan van der Merwe what he needs to become a world-class sprinter, but he hasn’t given up yet – even if his path to the Olympics is paved with dry bread.
Bereft mother pays it forward to honour slain son
After gangsters killed her son in Hanover Park, Avril Andrews started a foundation that feeds the hungry and supports mothers in finding justice for their murdered children.
Football dreams and reality are vastly different
Young players have to understand that only a select few will make it big and earn decent money for a reasonable amount of time. But how do they resist the lure of short-term gain?
Residents, not occupiers, live at Cissie Gool House
A zine that depicts those living in what used to be an abandoned hospital in Woodstock reframes and humanises the same people the government has labelled criminals.
A long walk to cricket stardom for Keegan Petersen
The Proteas batsman has ‘arrived’ and is rightly being hailed for his performance in the Test series against India. But to get there has been an arduous journey under the watchful eye of his dad.
The sound of music quietens the sound of guns
Join Bands, Not Gangs offers music lessons to vulnerable teens in dangerous Western Cape neighbourhoods, encouraging those at risk to choose an instrument rather than a gun.
Tech-boosted English classes reach more migrants
Covid-19 lockdowns forced a Cape Town organisation to adapt its teaching methods. Now its language instruction helps those living in other parts of Africa and even beyond.
Fighting abuse of women in Western Cape farmlands
In part one of a four-part series on gender-based violence and grassroots activism, we look at an anti-GBV community-response team in the small Western Cape town of Klapmuts.
Bleak Christmas looms for former freedom fighters
Problems ranging from asthma-causing black mould to faeces floating up toilets plague houses recently built for military veterans in Cape Town.
How Lulamile Sidwaba was manoeuvred off his farm
In this second feature on land restitution in Stutterheim, a farmer allocated land by the government loses it to a member of a prominent ANC family.
Boxing is more than just a job for Sipho Ndongeni
He is a police officer in one of South Africa’s most violent neighbourhoods, fighting crime on the streets and in the ring as a boxing club owner and referee.
Western Cape taxi violence brings lives to a halt
Not only has a major taxi route in the province been closed, but even clinics are empty because health workers cannot get to their places of employment.
Cricket dreams die on unsafe pitch in Khayelitsha
Harry Gwala Secondary School principal Gcinisile Mlungu laments how a pitch that was supposed to grow the sport in the school and surrounding areas now lies unused because of vandalism.
Part three | HIV lessons for Covid-19
The last in this three-part series highlights how, unlike during the HIV and Aids epidemic in South Africa, no ordinary people have taken to the streets to demand vaccines.
Part two | HIV lessons for Covid-19
The second in this three-part series shows the critical role communities played in HIV and Aids treatment in rural Lusikisiki, a neglected aspect of the government’s coronavirus vaccine rollout.
Part one | HIV lessons for Covid-19
The first in this three-part series looks at how South Africans overcame the pharmaceutical patents blocking access to life-saving antiretrovirals during the country’s first epidemic, HIV and Aids.
Walking through Kalk Bay’s history
Artist and teacher Traci Kwaai tells the stories of the fishing community that has inhabited the area for generations, focusing on a history that is otherwise whitewashed.
S4 Episode 12: Vaccines and variants | Kalk Bay
South African scientists have played a crucial role in global Covid-19 research. We go behind the scenes with one of them. Also, residents of Cape Town’s historic Kalk Bay feel the creep of gentrification.
S4 Episode 11: Cissie Gool | Paris Commune | ‘Internationale’
We visit the Cissie Gool House. Is this occupation a model for affordable housing? Why the Paris Commune matters 150 years on. And, the story of a song with its roots in the Commune.