![]() A few young men cut across the road carrying “zincs,” or large strips of pilfered corrugated tin, to the scrapyard for cash. I get bored here because I’ve got nothing to do,” Athi says, walking back to his home on the west side of the tracks. ![]() Today the country’s youth unemployment rate is a crippling 52 percent for young people ages 15 through 24, and wages are very low for those who do work. Here, socioeconomic inequality still resembles that of the apartheid years, when the lives of non-white residents were constrained by law and by force, skewing unemployment, crime, public health and education statistics against black and colored South Africans. This is Part One of a two-part series.ĬAPE TOWN, South Africa - Sitting in a small concrete park on a Friday afternoon, Athi faces the train tracks that divide the largely black township of Philippi into two parts - Philippi West and its somewhat wealthier neighbor Philippi East, a rival gang territory.Īthi, a 22-year-old black man who was just a toddler when apartheid ended, perches on the rim of a piece of playground equipment, a spinning metal circle that looks like an overturned wagon wheel. ![]() Editor’s note: This story is part of a Special Report on the global youth unemployment crisis, “ Generation TBD.” It’s the result of a GroundTruth reporting fellowship featuring 21 correspondents in 11 countries, a year-long effort that brings together media, technology, education and humanitarian partners for an authoritative exploration of the problem and possible solutions.
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