Project Khayelitsha, South Africa

Laura Shipman (MAUD ’08), Ashley Heeren (MArch 09), and Patrick Stowe Jones (MArch ’09) received travel grants from the GSD’s Community Service Fellowship Program to fund their travel to South Africa in the summer of 2007.

Project Khayelitsha is an effort to design and assist in construction of a new multipurpose community center in Khayelitsha, on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. The recently acquired site provides an opportunity to create a center which fosters a sense of community ownership, and a space serving an entire neighborhood with education and development projects. Khayelitsha is the second largest township in South Africa, home to over 500,000 people. This project is affiliated with Art Aids Art and MonkeyBiz, nonprofit organizations working with a South African collective of women artists to create employment and empowerment for disadvantaged women through beadwork in the township.