Side By Side Experiences is a Cape Town tour operator that takes guests to Cape Town’s formally segregated townships to meet with community leaders and engage with children and adults in community uplifting activities.
Experiences hosted by Side By SIde can be tailor-made, although ready-made experiences include a Zumba session with kids with a stroll through the township with the founder, or private township tours where an African meal is shared with the founder. Side By Side Experiences currently has more than eight experiences to choose from on.
Side by Side’s guides serve as bridge-builders, and the experiences are involved and unhurried. Experiences are led by community leaders who also receive a percentage of profits. In the Zumba experience, visitors are led by a Zumba entrepreneur who is known for his enigmatic personality and enthusiasm. He leads visitors and children from the community in the workout, and shares his personal story of how dance and exercise saved him from a life of gangsterism. Visitors who don't want to get active can still be part of the fun and play the djembe drums during the aerobic exercise.
In the township tours, visitors take the ‘Blend the City’ tour where they meet and support entrepreneurs in Langa. The entrepreneur leads visitors to sites where their personal transformation took place and hear stories about their journeys while experiencing the Langa township lifestyle. Places that are visited include family homes, schools attended by the entrepreneur, the coding academy he founded, and restaurants and taverns he went to often as a child.
Both tours include an African Fusion lunch with the restaurant founder, where they share the experiences of food business entrepreneurs in the township over a meal.