By Louise | Managing Director
Greetings, Avuxeni! Minjane? Umfekile Minjani!
Yoh it is cold here. For tropical South Africa, it is cold. I have just returned from Johannesburg after driving 7 kids to a Scout Camp at Florida South just by the lakes. They had to sleep in tents and awoke in the mornings to inch thick frost; it was so cold for them. We returned late Monday night, as Monday was a public holiday – Youth Day.
Every year on 16 June, South Africans pause to honour the bravery and sacrifice of the youth who stood up against injustice during the Soweto Uprising of 1976. These students, armed with nothing but courage and a demand for fair education, took to the streets to challenge the apartheid regime. Their resistance changed the course of history, and their legacy continues to inspire.
Youth Day is more than a remembrance; it is a celebration of the power of young voices to drive meaningful change. In 1976, the youth of South Africa ignited a fire that helped dismantle a system built on inequality. On the morning of 16 June 1976, over 20,000 black students walked from their schools to Orlando Stadium for a rally to protest having to learn through Afrikaans in school. Many students who later participated in the protest arrived at school that morning without prior knowledge of the protest yet agreed to become involved.
The protest was planned by the Soweto Students’ Representative Council’s (SSRC) Action Committee, with support from the wider Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Teachers in Soweto also supported the march after the Action Committee emphasised good discipline and peaceful action.
The police set their dog on the protesters, who responded by killing it. The police then began to shoot directly at the children.
The police attacks on the demonstrators continued, and over 700 people died in Soweto in the coming weeks.
The 1,500 heavily armed police officers deployed to Soweto on 17 June carried weapons including automatic rifles, stun guns, and carbines. They drove around in armoured vehicles with helicopters monitoring the area from the sky. The South African Army was also ordered on standby as a tactical measure to show military force. This demonstration by school children became a catalyst for the ANC and all anti-apartheid movements.
Today, the youth are seen and not heard, today the voice of the child is almost non-existent. Today the attitude of adults is that children have nothing meaningful to contribute, how quickly we forget. KTD196 is determined to put children’s voices at the forefront of any decisions being made on behalf of children, and for children.
I hope this little history lesson explains why we are so determined, to give children back their voices. We want to see and end to crimes against children, an end to corruption and negligence, we want children in South Africa to have a childhood and not be exploited.
Thank you for your support, I really appreciate you!
Blessings
Louise
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
