SA's oldest black rugby club aiming to keep Langa's at-risk youth on the right path

CAPE TOWN - In a country characterised by high youth unemployment, crime, and drugs, sport has remained a key area that manages to rally different groupings in South Africa together. 

This is exactly what Cape Town's oldest black rugby club, Busy Bee Rugby Football Club from Langa township, is doing.

The club, which turned 100 last year, is using sport to turn youngsters away from a life of crime and drugs.

Eyewitness News visited the club's training grounds in Langa recently to hear more of how this milestone was achieved

During the apartheid era, the Busy Bee Rugby Football Club was not only used as a vehicle to pass time but a tool for political engagements.

However, club chairperson Siyabonga Hani, says that today, the club was a way out for many youngsters from a life of crime and drugs.

"This club has played a meaningful role in terms of the transformation of this country as a tool for liberation. The club has also matured to offer better opportunities and became a social capital within the community of Langa to try and change the social conditions of our children and our youth living in this community."
 
Twenty-year-old Sibulele Ndabaninzi, who plays for the club's women's side, said that her wish was for government to invest more in the youth.
 
"The youth is on drugs, crime, and all other illegal things and I need the government to focus more on that because they die at a very young age."
 
The club said that government and business needed to invest more in township sports to help deal with the social challenges faced by communities.