Notorious for drugs and crime and afflicted by large-scale poverty, the Khayelitsha township here is better known for being one of the biggest slums on the planet.
But World Cup-winning coach Gary Kirsten is attempting to change the image for good through cricket. The idea struck him when he returned to his home here after guiding India to a World Cup title in 2011. "When I came back from India, I wanted to have a look at cricket in our poorest neighbourhoods in Cape Town," Kirsten recalled in an interview with PTI.
He ended up touring Khayelitsha, situated 30km south-east of Cape Town and considered one of the most unsafe areas where a majority of the inhabitants still live in shacks. "I took a tour of the area with local school authorities and found that no cricket was happening which disappointed me a lot.
I thought of this centre and we started with two concrete nets in two schools and then included three more schools," Kirsten said.