KwaMashu has a new home for its young people. On 27 May 2026, Safe-Hub, Rexona and eThekwini Municipality officially opened the Rexona Safe-Hub KwaMashu — a full community facility with a complete youth programme running inside it from day one.
The City and its partners put an investment of R88 million into the site. eThekwini Municipality provided the land, the infrastructure and the ongoing civic support and services that keep a facility like this open; Rexona came in as the funding partner, putting its name behind a model that has already been tested in some of the toughest neighbourhoods in the country.
Why KwaMashu
A Safe-Hub is never dropped somewhere at random. It goes where young people already have the talent and the drive, and what is missing is the space to use it.
“KwaMashu is exactly where Safe-Hub belongs — in communities where young people have talent and drive but lack space or opportunity.”
Florian Zech, Founder and Managing Director, Safe-Hub
That is the whole argument for the model in one sentence. The football turf and the floodlights are the front door. Behind them sits everything else: early childhood development for the youngest children, after-school youth development, health services young people can actually walk into, and employability programmes for those getting ready to earn their first income.
A partnership, not a donation
What makes KwaMashu worth writing about is not the ribbon-cutting. It is the shape of the deal. A municipality that supplies land and services, a corporate partner that funds the build, and an organisation that runs the programme every afternoon for years afterwards — each doing the part it is actually good at.
“Rexona exists to get people moving — KwaMashu is exactly where movement changes lives.”
— Stefan Cloete, CEO, Unilever Southern Africa
“This launch turns belief into something young people can learn and grow from.”
— Councillor Thembubuhle Ntuli, Chairperson, Economic Development and Planning, eThekwini Municipality
What happens next
The gates are open and the programme is running. Over the coming months the KwaMashu team will build out the full offering across all four age groups, from three-year-olds in early childhood development to young adults moving into work and enterprise.
Safe-Hub has been doing this since 2007 and now runs sites in South Africa, Germany, the United States, Côte d’Ivoire and India. KwaMashu joins a network of more than twenty locations — and, more to the point, it joins a community that will now have somewhere to be every single afternoon.
Want to be part of what happens at a Safe-Hub near you? Get involved.