Families flocking to the Helderberg’s beautiful beaches at Gordon’s Bay, Strand and Harmony Park this festive season will benefit from the City of Cape Town’s popular Identikidz child safety programme, which helps reunite hundreds of lost children with their families each holiday period.
The City’s Community Services and Health Directorate will once again implement the very popular Identikidz programme, designed to keep children safe at some of Cape Town’s busiest beaches this festive season.
Identikidz is coordinated by the Community, Arts and Culture Development Department (CACD). The concept is simple, but its impact is critical to ensuring the safety of children – with hundreds of reunions each season.
Parents and caregivers can register children at participating beaches, where they receive an armband containing a unique serial number. Armband details are recorded alongside the caregiver’s information, enabling quick reunification if a child becomes separated from their group during their beach visit.
“We are delighted that we can once again provide this important safety programme on our beautiful beaches and would like to encourage parents to please make use of the service. We all share a responsibility to create safer spaces for our children, and our beaches are no exception – especially considering how busy these spaces get over the peak festive season. Identikidz adds a lot of value, but caregivers are still responsible for ensuring that their children are supervised at all times,” said mayoral committee member for community services and health, councillor Francine Higham.
During the 2024 festive season, the City tagged 133 730 children over five priority weekends, with 302 children safely reunited with their loved ones through the programme.
The programme runs over 15 days from 09:00 until 18:30 on the following dates:
Monday 15, Tuesday 16, Saturday 20, Sunday 21, Thursday 25, Friday 26, Saturday 27, and Sunday 28 December 2025; and Thursday 1, Saturday 3, Sunday 4, Saturday 10, Sunday 11, Saturday 17, and Sunday 18 January 2026.
Apart from Gordon’s Bay, Harmony Park and Strand, other participating beaches are: Big Bay, Camps Bay, Fish Hoek, Melkbosstrand, Milnerton Beach, Mnandi, Monwabisi, Muizenberg, Sea Point and surrounding areas, Silwerstroom and Strandfontein.
The service will be available at Maiden’s Cove on Friday 26 December and Thursday 1 January.
To help protect children during their beach visit, CACD officials will:
– register children with parental permission and issue identification wristbands;
– assist with reunifying lost or displaced children; and
– work closely with the provincial Department of Social Development, City enforcement agencies and the police to ensure safe reunification of lost children with their families.
The CACD Department will deploy 53 officials and 159 Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) staff members working closely with other City departments, including the Disaster Risk Management Centre.
