Repheleng is based in the busy township of KwaThema. The Safe Park serves around 70 youths who are mostly in the Primary School age bracket. Unlike the other Safe Parks that we have been working with, Repheleng's main focus is on after school and extra curricular support, rather than a feeding scheme. As the Safe Park uses the same space as a Church, the majority of the children that they attract are from the congregation. Whilst the youths are still in need of the support offered by the Safe Park, most of them do not come from the same kinds of vulnerable backgrounds that those from other Safe Parks so and therefore they do not experience the same kinds of challenges. Dudu, the project manager has noted that the Safe Park are now increasingly trying to target OVCs (orphaned and vulnerable children) in their locality, however they are finding that these youths are reluctant to attend as they are ashamed of their circumstances. The Safe Park also has trouble finding people who are willing to volunteer to help with running the day to day activities as most local people are unable to work unpaid and the Safe Park is not always able to offer a stipend. It is for these two reasons that the Safe Park has now found itself with a limited capacity for development, despite the fact that it is eager to expand its scope.
The youths from Repheleng made one film that broadly covered the topic of discrimination. When speaking to them about this isssue, the youths noted that discrimination is not singular, it does not only apply to one specific group of people. They spoke about how they have witnessed the effects of racism, homophobia, gender inequality, xenophobia, (the list goes on...), in their community. However they also started sharing with us stories about how each of them have faced discrimination in smaller things that were not necessarily related to skin colour or nationality. Therefore this group felt that they wanted to create a film that would capture how easily discrimination can be felt, through creating a story about a girl with a skin infection. This story is related to the real life experiences of one of the youths who wanted to share it in a way that anyone could identify with. The group felt that every person in the world has experienced discrimination in some small way, and that even those stories deserved to be acknowledged.