YEP Clan, founded in 2007 by Sizwe Matoti and focusing on community development through the empowerment of young people, started hiking on a monthly basis with a group of young people ages 12-19 from Mandela Park in Khayelitsha. The primary aim was to be able to provide the opportunity for these youths to experience the beauty of nature, and visit places in Cape Town that none of them had ever been too, such as Table Mountain etc. Given the success of the hikes, which still continue three years later under the Greening Young Minds Program, it became clear that there was a huge need and desire for a constructive pastime for these guys to put their energy into after school. YEP Clan also runs three other empowerment programs for young people. One being the Life Skills Development workshop which is a leadership program aimed at communities and local high school. The other program is the Pride of Hope program mainly focusing on recruiting volunteers to do community service in orphanages, shelters and other community development initiatives that seek to reconstruct and build our communities through giving off time to those that are in need. for the past three years since YEP Clan’s inception piloted this project within the community of Mandela Park in Khayelitsha, Samora Machel in Philiphi and some bits in and around Gugulethu.