GRAHAM GUY BARRATT

Zulu brother Mnqobi hangs out in the pool hall shaded from the burning afternoon sun. “Basically we are all the same, I come from the township and am black, you are white. If I look at you superficially, we are different, and if you put emphasis on that level we grow more distant. If I look at you as my own kind, as human beings like myself with one nose, two eyes and so forth then automatically that distance is gone. We are the same human flesh”.
In the Pool Hall of Imizamo Yethu Township near Cape Town South Africa

Under Apartied Vicky was originally accepted to study engineering at University because of her exceptional grades and white sounding name. Turning up on the first day she was immediately sent away on the grounds that there must have been some mistake but that she was also the wrong colour. Today Vicky definitely not one to be kept down runs her Bed & Breakfast and has been featured on both CNN and BBC World to mention a few, inspiring many in the townships in their struggle for a better life in an emerging South Africa.
At the front door to her B&B C-685A, Kiyane Street, Site C, Khayelitsha Township 7784 South Africa.

Cape Town, Hout Bay, Imizamo Yethu, Township. Siphiwe Thandi Cele “Speewe” (gift in Zulu) with his wife at the door of their new house under construction being built around and over their existing shack, ‘I think people are landmarks more than most will ever imagine. The people we see, speak to, bump into, ignore and live with….what would this township be without them? Just an empty shell, the people are what makes Imizamo Yethu.
Outside the shell of his new home Imizamo Yethu Township near Cape Town.

Cape Town, Hout Bay, Imizamo Yethu, Township.

Mama and her young one at 429 Imizamo Yethu, Hout Bay caught in the late afternoon shadows as the falling heat brought people out onto the streets. Despite the racist’s regimes demise both geographical and economical disparities still challenge today’s South Africa. Thousands in fact millions of the black population continue to live without many of todays bare necessities such as water and electricity, with only corrugated iron or cardboard to shield them from the elements.

Maintenance and a bit of cleaning for Ben’s pride and joy. ‘It’s very important for us to take responsibility for our own lives, its no use to just sit around complaining everything is the fault of the white population. Individuals themselves, not the government have to take action, it’s better to teach a man how to fish than to just give him a fish’. Very wise words and they came from a Manchester United fan.

Khayelitsha Township, Cape Town South Africa.