A community outreach centre in Hanover Park will stage Not Just Another Cinderella Story at the Artscape theatre later this month.
The play, with a cast of 50, aged from 6 to 24, has been produced by the First Community Resource Centre, a non-profit company that was started in Hanover Park in 2002 to alleviate poverty and various social ills. Its services include drug rehabilitation, counselling and support for vulnerable children. They also offer arts and crafts, after-school programmes, feeding schemes, career guidance, and computer-literacy and performing-arts classes.
Tammy-Jo Matthews, the centre’s production manager, who wrote and directed the play, said it addressed the need to tackle social ills on the Cape Flats.
“We are using the production as awareness for our communities, to tell stories through it. Our communities suffer from social ills: domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, poverty, orphaned children, depression, and vulnerable children. Teenagers will be able to resonate with the production.”
The centre’s founder, Craven Engel, said orphaned children were often fostered in unsuitable homes and experienced secondary trauma.
Those children that were adopted or placed with more suitable foster parents were less likely to fall prey to gangs and more likely to thrive, he said.
“The play shows that poverty is not a disqualifying factor to raise a child. We hope to create awareness of difficulties children and families find themselves in. People often think they are the only ones going through trouble but many people have difficulties. The cast has 50 young people and 50 percent of that fits the criteria of social ills,” he said.
The play will be staged at Artscape on Saturday September 30, at 1pm and 6pm. Tickets are R150 and R100 for children under 12. Call Albert Matthews at 074 889 9056 for more information.