The training provided at CAP was meant to serve not only its members, but the larger community as well. The center was founded on the idea of "each one teach one" – after an artist had been trained, they would take what they had learned back to their community to help empower the broader society. A large part of the work created at CAP was embedded in and served the struggle against apartheid. CAP is well known for its posters through the 1980s and early 1990s. "reclaiming public visual space through training people in producing posters." Many of these advertised activism and attempted to mobilise the oppressed. However, the center's main aim was providing opportunity to all in a non-sectarian, multiracial space. CAP never aligned itself with a particular political party and quite a bit of the work produced at CAP did not pertain directly to the struggle, but spanned a wide range of themes. CAP activist Ishmael Moss explains, "It was not so much pressure on the art to "toe the line", rather we worked to give the people space." Also, CAP distinguished itself as one of the few community arts centers which catered to all races, but was located in a white residential area rather than a township, drawing in liberal white artists as well as non-whites. Though it was not entirely without internal tension, CAP has been described as an "island outside the polarization in the rest of the country." It focused less on directly combating existing apartheid institutions and more on creating new multiracial ones. It has been argued that this community itself, by its multiracial nature, served the anti-apartheid struggle just as well as the art intended to challenge segregation. The fight for equality "adopted its most literal expression as a fight for a political democracy in the production of protest posters; however even the ‘melting pot’ of different races and ideas created at CAP enacted a democratic community in opposition to state segregation." CAP aimed to provide a space for self-definition and healing, where "marginalized people could empower and humanize themselves through creativity." In 1976, lecturers from the University of Cape Town began two temporary projects, offering workshops to marginalised artists. While these were originally intended to be temporary projects, the enthusiastic response and demand for more workshops lead to the decision to open the more permanent Community Arts Project the following year. When CAP opened in 1977, it was housed at 17 Main Road in the Cape Town suburb of Mowbray. In its early years, it was very community driven, classes being formed in response to requests for them.