Salt River, Cape Town Community House, Building in Salt River, Cape Town, South Africa

Salt River Community House is a social activism center where approximately two dozen organizations work from shared offices. These groups focus on labor research, education, gender advocacy, HIV/AIDS education, environmental work, and youth development programs.

In the mid-1980s, anti-apartheid trade unions and civic organisations needed a headquarters for their resistance campaign. The Western Province Council of Churches and the Social Change Assistance Trust bought a dilapidated auto workshop in Salt River, a district of textile and light metal factories where industrial unions began. From this building some of the largest strikes and campaigns were organised, including the Purple Rain Protest of September 1989, when 100,000 people marched through Cape Town. Heritage Western Cape declared it a provincial heritage site on 19 February 2010.

The building is named for its role as a shared home for labour and community groups. It houses a labour and community history museum built around the Trade Union Library and its archive. Eight activists are commemorated there: Neil Aggett, Jeanette Curtis, Imam Haron, Elijah Loza, Ashley Kriel, Storey Luke Mazwembe, Wilfred Rhodes and Barry Streek.

Community House stands in Salt River, the district tied to the province's textile and light metal factories and to the origins of its industrial unions. It is a working building, home to twenty-four organizations, so access to offices and the Trade Union Library archive depends on the resident groups; arrange any visit with them beforehand.

Community House is the only site in South Africa that has provided a collective home for the broader labour movement. Since its inception, COSATU, its union affiliates and worker-support organisations have formed its backbone, and it still houses twenty-four organisations today.