About Dunoon

The Dunoon Township is situated on the West Coast in the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. It falls under the Blaauwberg Municipality and the Cape Town magisterial district. It is clustered together with the townships Joe Slovo and Site 5 although Joe Slovo is a few kilometers away from Dunoon.


For 10 years people have been settling in the Dunoon area and today 50.000 to 60.000 people live in Dunoon of whom 80% are Blacks and the rest Coloureds.
It is an area that is characterized by abject poverty and a high crime rate culminating from a high unemployment rate.
The unemployment rate lies at 80% and HIV infected inhabitants account for 70% of the people living in Dunoon.


The Dunoon community is challenged and threatened in many ways:

• Although there are two Primary Schools and a new High School, there is a lack of educational facilities such as libraries, after school care and proper educational community development facilities. The illiteracy rate is very high due to school drop outs and child headed households.
  
• The Dunoon Free Clinic provides only for a small range of medical problems and the next clinic is … away
  
• The area is under resourced in the sense of transport and economic infrastructure, jobs are hard to find and far away
  
• Recreational facilities hardly exist
  
• The housing consists mostly of informal settlements and backyard shacks which are more endangered by natural disasters such as fire and floods, a constant danger to the inhabitants
  
• Many forms of violence exist in the township; domestic violence, crime, child and elderly abuse, rape and murder. Reasons are the desperation and lack of perspective of the people, alcohol and substance abuse, as well as the absence of a police station that could curtail the violence.