Cape Town Association for the Physically Disabled (CTAPD) logo Donate
Empowering Independence. Enhancing Lives.

We help people with physical disabilities live independently

Psychosocial rehabilitation, social work, skills development and advocacy — dignity and inclusion across 13 Cape Town suburbs, since 1937.

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Serving Cape Town since 1937 Rated 90% by Western Cape DSD Registered NPO & PBO · Section 18A approved

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A Cape Town APD staff member handing a relief parcel to a smiling member in a wheelchair at a community handover

A relief handover at one of our community events. Real CTAPD photograph.

Where the work happens

The parcel is the excuse. The visit is the point.

When a member’s wheelchair breaks or a kitchen stands empty, nobody fills in a form and waits. A social worker gets in the car — to Tafelsig, to Gugulethu, to a kitchen table — and sits down.

We have been doing this since 1937, when polio filled Cape Town’s wards and nobody was responsible for what happened after the hospital. After the stroke. After the accident. After the diagnosis. That is where we live: in the years when a person decides whether disability will shrink their life or simply change its shape.

Disability is not the end of independence. Being forgotten is.

Read our stories Where we come from

Wilfred Diedricks, Chief Executive Officer

“For more than eighty years we have believed that disability should never determine opportunity.”

Wilfred Diedricks, Chief Executive Officer

2,000+ Cape Town lives touched by our work, every year.

Social work at the door, psychosocial rehabilitation, skills, mobility and advocacy — across 13 suburbs, since 1937.

What we do

Four ways independence happens

We measure success in journeys made, not forms filed.

Social work at the door

Registered social workers on the road four days a week - counselling, wheelchairs, crisis support.

How it works

Families & children

Early intervention for children with disabilities, support for tired caregivers, and December’s Ukonwaba outing.

How it works

A seat at the table

Monthly Consumer Forums in every community elect two members straight onto our Board.

How it works

Skills that earn

Sewing in Parkwood and Langa, vegetables in Du Noon, recycling in Bonteheuwel - work that pays.

How it works
Where we work

Independence, delivered in the suburbs

We do not wait for people to reach us. We go to them — across 13 suburbs of Cape Town, from Du Noon in the north to Tafelsig in the south-east.

  • ★ Bridgetown & Athlone — Reable Centre (head office)
  • 1 Du Noon
  • 2 Langa
  • 3 Bonteheuwel
  • 4 Silvertown
  • 5 Manenberg
  • 6 Gugulethu
  • 7 Khayelitsha
  • 8 Parkwood
  • 9 Tafelsig & Mitchells Plain
  • … and more across the metro
People of CTAPD

A number tells you how many. A name tells you why.

Five of the people whose lives intersect with CTAPD. Different communities, different needs, one thing in common: support arrived at the right moment.

Nomsa, 67

Gugulethu

Housebound after her wheelchair broke. A home visit and a refitted chair, and Sunday church is hers again.

Peter, 54

Manenberg

A stroke took his trade. Counselling at his own kitchen table gave him back the will to retrain.

Ashraf, 29

Parkwood

Learned to sew in our Parkwood group. His school-uniform orders now arrive faster than he can fill them.

Amanda, 41

Du Noon

Grows and sells vegetables from the community garden - her own income, on her own terms.

Jonathan, 23

Bonteheuwel

First in his family with a qualification, through a learnership we matched him to.

First names and details anonymised from real CTAPD casework. Full named stories and portraits will follow as members give consent.

Out in the field

See our work in pictures

Events, handovers, skills and celebrations across our Cape Town suburbs.

CTAPD members celebrating together Members in the sewing workshop Mandela Day with Virgin Active A CTAPD market day

View the full gallery

Ways to help

Pick the way that fits your life

Independence is rarely one big thing. It is a hundred small ones, done on time.

Give monthly

Steady gifts keep the vans on the road between grants. Cancel any time.

Start with R250

Volunteer

Events, skills, time. Tell us what you have - we will find where it counts.

Offer your hands

Partner

CSI with audit-grade proof. Sponsor a workshop, an event, or a van.

Visit the Partnership Hub

Advocate

Come to a Consumer Forum. Share our stories. Make the city listen.

Find your forum
Why trust us

Check us before you give. Please.

Two in three donors say trust decides whether they give. Good. Here is what you can verify yourself:

  • Audited every year - latest opinion unqualified, by an IRBA-registered auditor
  • Independently rated 90% for compliance by Department of Social Development monitors - the highest band
  • Governed by disabled leaders - and two Board seats elected by beneficiaries themselves
  • Every document published - financials, certificates and constitution, available on request

Visit the Transparency Hub

For business

Looking for a CSI or ESG partner?

Audit-grade reporting. Measurable impact. Local outcomes.

B-BBEE & ESG alignedSection 18A certificatesUnqualified audit90% DSD rating
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This month at CTAPD

This Month at CTAPD

Members tending vegetable beds at the Du Noon urban garden
Featured story

Du Noon’s garden pays its gardeners

Spinach and onions, planted, tended and sold by members in their own community — income with dignity attached.

Read the story

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Independence starts with one visit

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