Philippi is located in close distance to the airport and ranks among the bigger townships Cape Towns. Developed in the early 1980ies, it is still a relatively new township. Nowadays, apparently between 250.000 and 500.000 (depending on the census) people live in Philippi, a large number of them suffering form poverty and starvation.

Many came down from the Eastern Cape hoping to find better live circumstances than they have had before. But work is hard to find, and that is why most of them do end up in small wooden or corrugated iron huts in a district without public or medical aid but the highest rate of murders in South Africa and with an Aids rate of approx. 40%.

The government can’t keep its promise to provide stone-built houses and basis supplements for all South Africans. Due to that, half of all families live in Philippi, other townships or informal settlements without toilets or proper sewage systems. Public toilets are in bad condition and extremely unhygienic. Very few residents have got access to electricity power, so disastrous fires are caused by candles or lights often. Lung problems are the subsequence of cooking with paraffin stoves, and the irregular – if any – refuse disposal leads to pales of rubbish and soiling by trash lying around.Philippi’s residents must spend a large percentage of their monthly salary on transport to be able to get to work as in most cases places of work are more than 20 km away from Philippi.Education itself is free of any reimbursements but due to the fact that books, external fees as well as the school uniforms can’t be afforded by their parents, 30% of Philippi’s children don’t visit classes. Apart from that, quality of public schools is quite poor so the kids who do attend to the lessons do still leave school before it’s official end. Due to that it is not surprising that the unemployment rate within teens and twens reaches about 50%.