If students from a slum, where most pupils drop out of school, successfully graduates from high school than it must be celebrated. The short movie Shanty Town Cinderellas shows how important a prom night is to them.

Four young people from the Cape Flats are the main characters in the ten minutes short documentation about distress and hope. They have achieved an important aim in their young life: They successfully completed their matrics, a degree which qualifies them to start their studies at a university.

In the Cape Flats in Cape Town, where only one pupil out of ten completes the school career, the four belong to a very small minority. Independent from the criticism that the South African education system would heavily lack in quality the juveniles worked a small miracle, I think.

Almost all communities in the Cape Flats are poverty stricken, suffer from unemployment and crime. Against this backdrop, the young people have only small chances to break out of their social class. The kids more likely drift into crime and might become members of a gang. Most of my friends became a statistic. They became gangsters, started using drugs. At home in my community there are about 4 or 5 boys in matric that lives close to me, Wilmen Daniels tells.

But what is about all the youngsters who don’t drop out of school, who don’t become addicted to drugs or even sell drugs and who don’t start mugging other people but work hard to gain the possibility to enter the university? They deserve a lavish celebration — at all costs. Some parents work extra hours, others even take up a loan to finance their children’s prom. A guy in the film spent, according to his own words, 500 Euro for the party, clothes and a new hair style. It is much money, especially for a township dweller, though the prom is a very important event, the highlight of the year; and the graduates are treated like small superstars.

(Found at Africa is a country.)