Bless Them All youth Development

Bless Them All is a youth development non- profit organization in Nyanga East, Cape Town that engages youths in music (singing), drama, dance and poetry to keep them away from crime. We are comprised of more than 500 youth from the Greater Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Delft, Mfuleni and Stellenbosch. We have impacted quite a number of people (young and old) since the establishment of this organization almost 20 years ago. We have branches in the Eastern Cape: Sterkspruit (Joe Gqabi Municipality, Sanqu district) and King Williams Town (Phakamisa, Buffalo City).

Our major role in these communities is to introduce various projects which seek to fight crime and develop skills and capabilities among young people. We are now teaching and promoting indigenous arts, culture and heritage.

An overwhelming proportion of the community members were raised in families whose teachings are based on customary values. We were raised knowing that God and ancestors are a panacea to all social ills. We do not want to disabuse our youth this fundamental knowledge, but to inculcate it more amongst them. Thus, our activities bring hope to those in despair.

This year, 2017 marks the 20th Anniversary of Bless Them All Youth Development. Our planned programme is packed with lots of fun and celebration of South African historic days. In a nutshell, we will start off by training and teaching programme, recording, festivals, exhibitions, performing arts and school holidays programmes. These indigenous activities aim at giving opportunity to Arts and Cultural disciplines like Music, Dance, Drama, Visual Arts and poetry. BTAYD’s activities will involve hundreds of youth singers, dancers, actors and visual artists; thousands residents of the broader Western Cape Province as audience members and various partner arts and government organizations. People would leave these shows spiritually replenished.

This project includes very varied activities: music and dance; drama and theatre, exhibition of paintings, sculpture, photography, decoration and design. The whole essence is to promote integration, interaction and bringing people together through arts, culture and heritage.