Love and Loyalty in a Land of Gangs

In a community long known as one of South Africa’s most violent places, faith and fortitude help one determined family look to the future.

Photos by Sarah Stacke

A suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, Manenberg was established in the Cape Flats, a vast low-lying sand dune, during the late 1960s by the apartheid government as an area for Coloured families. Marginalized by culture, history and geography, most of Manenberg’s estimated 70,000 residents live in overcrowded and problematic conditions. More than twenty years since the end of apartheid, Manenberg has not seen the fruits of democracy. The community is largely recognized in South African media for its social problems, which include unemployment, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, crime, and above all, relentless gang violence.

In the midst of Manenberg's turmoil, the Lottering family remains bound by faith, loyalty, and love, creating their own safe world, a barrier against the violence outside.