text and photos by Brett Larner
A day after running in South Africa’s Sanlam Cape Town Marathon and 10 km road race, 1996 Atlanta Olympics marathon gold medalist Josiah Thugwane and Japan’s iconoclastic civil servant runner Yuki Kawauchi traveled to the Kayamandi township outside Stellenbosch to speak to local children taking part in the songo.info program. A community with over 100 years of history, the 33,000 residents of Kayamandi live in extreme conditions of poverty in the hills overlooking the wealthy winery town of Stellenbosch. Thugwane and Kawauchi were taken on a walking tour of the community to see with their own eyes the situation in which the songo.info program's children live and the challenges they face.
Created in 2008 by Songo Fipaza, a Kayamandi resident who became a national-level cross-country runner through the support of 1992 Barcelona Olympics silver medalist Elana Meyer when as a youth he sought her out in Stellenbosch after watching her immediate post-Ap…
A day after running in South Africa’s Sanlam Cape Town Marathon and 10 km road race, 1996 Atlanta Olympics marathon gold medalist Josiah Thugwane and Japan’s iconoclastic civil servant runner Yuki Kawauchi traveled to the Kayamandi township outside Stellenbosch to speak to local children taking part in the songo.info program. A community with over 100 years of history, the 33,000 residents of Kayamandi live in extreme conditions of poverty in the hills overlooking the wealthy winery town of Stellenbosch. Thugwane and Kawauchi were taken on a walking tour of the community to see with their own eyes the situation in which the songo.info program's children live and the challenges they face.
Created in 2008 by Songo Fipaza, a Kayamandi resident who became a national-level cross-country runner through the support of 1992 Barcelona Olympics silver medalist Elana Meyer when as a youth he sought her out in Stellenbosch after watching her immediate post-Ap…