SAEP is working to develop a Centre for Innovative Education and Community Service in Cape Town. The Centre will support, improve, and expand SAEP’s ongoing education and community service programmes. During 2009 it has helped SAEP launch three new programmes -- the SAEP Hope Scholars, ADT Teach, and SAEP Matric Success programmes -- in the high schools and the SAEP Tertiary Support Programme for university students who have graduated from SAEP's Bridging Year.

The Centre will provide the infrastructure and support needed for SAEP’s growing educational support and youth development services in Cape Town’s townships and expand the opportunities for community service that SAEP offers to individuals and groups from South Africa and abroad. It will be an incubator for new projects as volunteers in existing projects see unfulfilled community needs and create new projects or adapt existing ones to meet them, as in the case of two student projects discussed below, TeachOut and Inkanyezi, which developed out of another organization (the Township Debating League) developed in partnership with SAEP.

The Centre will be a home for community-based research and evaluation for educational and other community development projects. 

Finally, it will enhance SAEP’s capacity to discharge its original missions -- to promote environmental awareness, improve environmental conditions in Cape Town's township communities, and advocate for sustainable use of South Africa’s natural environment.

The programmes on which the Centre will be built have developed over a ten-year period in response to community needs and in partnership with the schools, pre-schools, and community organizations. These programmes have been implemented in partnership with other organizations that provide human resources, expertise, energy, and ideas. Their value has been demonstrated, and the need for them continues to grow.  After extensive consultation with our US and South African governing bodies, we have adopted the Centre concept as the ideal vehicle for their development.