City at Peace – Cape Town is founded on the belief that true social change will never occur in South Africa until individuals have the capacity to create meaningful, honest and understanding relationships across divisions of race, language, economic and social backgrounds.

Through workshops and training, opportunities are built for these diverse youth to have a chance for honest and open dialogue with youth from extremely different backgrounds.

The focus is not simply on ‘making friends’ with youth from another culture but on building working relationships with a focus on creating integrated leadership for community based social change.

Over the course of a year, youth participants are trained in leadership for social change as well as artistic training in drama, dance and music. They ultimately create an original production based on the stories of their lives which is toured around the city and use the material of that production to initiate community change projects in their home schools and communities.

City at Peace-Cape Town is currently running a pilot program from August 2005 until December 2005. A group of fifty youths aged 13-25 years are involved in the project, recruited from various schools, community centres, churches and non-profit organizations from throughout Cape Town’s suburbs and townships.

By exploring issues such as race, culture, family and peer relationships, violence, sexual orientation and substance abuse in a collaborative process, participants are creating dramatic representations of their own lives and work together to create their vision of a better future for themselves in the Rainbow Nation.