Christ The Healer Project - Why The Group Was Set Up

Why The Group Was Set Up

• The Transkei is still recovering from decades of Apartheid, the systematic disenfranchising and discrimination against Black South Africans

• In the 1960s the Xhosa people of this Aliwal region had their farming land seized and were forced under Apartheid to settle on poor farming land. This land is not arable and does not support livestock, and so is not self-supporting

• The infrastructure of the region is still weak. South Africa is still a nation of opposites. Most of its people live in conditions we would recognise as Third World

• In the Transkei region where the Youth Alive Programme is based the average monthly income for a family is £50. The migrant labour system still operates where parents work hundreds of miles away from their children, most families are only united at Christmas

• The worst effect of Apartheid has been the undermining of the traditional family life of the Xhosa and Sotho people of the Transkei. Children often fend for themselves or if lucky are reared by grandparents.

• Crime is rife, alcoholism common and drug abuse out of control. Young people rarely finish school and have no local job prospects. In this climate promiscuity is common and HIV/AIDS is out of control.