July 2009 newsletter: >Please click here 42kB .doc<
Historical Background
The Lutheran Community Centre was established in the early nineties by the previously “white” Lutheran Church, the “black” Lutheran Church and the Moravian Church. They saw the great need of assisting the inhabitants of one of the poorest slums in the Cape Town Metropolitan area called Philippi.
In the 1860s, German farmers settled here in order to grow vegetables on the sandy soil of the so-called Cape Flats. In the Apartheid years the government declared parts of Philippi a “black spot” and the white farmers were moved. They left a church and a cemetery in New-Eisleben behind, which was later bought by a trust consisting of the above mentioned three churches. And it is here where the Lutheran Community Centre operates from.
Situation in Philippi
The people of Philippi live in sheer poverty. Most of them have come from the Eastern Cape in order to find a better life in Cape Town. But jobs are difficult to find, so they end up in little shacks made from wood, card-board and corrugated iron and eke out a meagre living by… I actually don’t know what. Crime is rife. The Philippi police district has the highest per capita murder rate in South Africa. The AIDS-infection rate is estimated to be 40%. Many women get infected by rape and gang rape. As there is almost no social welfare system in South Africa they have no income to feed themselves and their babies. Hunger is the main problem for most of them. We as the church are challenged to go out and make a difference in their life.
