The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation youth have embarked on a week-long leadership camp, which will see them travelling from Johannesburg to Robben Island.
They will spend four days on the Island itself, honing their activism skills.
Participants form part of the Kathrada Youth Clubs, a programme that aims to establish 100 community clubs by 2029, when the Foundation will mark the centenary of struggle stalwart, Ahmed Kathrada.
Nine of the youth clubs have already been piloted in and around the Finetown, Eldorado Park, Lawley, Lehae, Lenasia, Lenasia South, Orange Farm, Protea Glen and the Thembelihle communities.
Throughout this year, the youth clubs have initiated several campaigns to help address challenges and issues within their localities, while at the same time strengthening their capacity as young activists in the communities which they serve.
Projects have included:
-An initiative to collect and distribute sanitary pads,
– A clean-up campaign of the Lenasia Post Office, which had been neglected and in a poor state;
– Highlighting the rise of gender-based violence and femicide in the country. Here, young people from the Lenasia and Finetown communities hosted protests as well as community marches calling for urgent action; and
– Sports tournaments, discussions and screenings of historical documentaries.
The leadership camp on Robben Island aims to build further capacity through training workshops, dialogues and activities.
This year, two of the top three winners chosen in the Youth Essay Writing Competition Against Racism will also form part of the leadership camp. Essayists Charissa Cassels from Port Elizabeth and Mbalenhle Shandu from Kwa Zulu-Natal will get a chance to read out their winning entries where they speak out against racism.
“Our youth participants will engage with thought leaders who are actively doing work across different sectors of society,” said Dumisile Tshabalala, the Youth Programmes Manager at the Foundation.
“In addition to the training sessions, which will be facilitated by members of the Foundation, the programme on the island will feature organisations who are doing work around the rebuilding of democracy. As we lay the basis for the youth club structures, the programme will also focus on instilling moral and ethical leadership.”
Former Robben Island political prisoner, Sunny Singh, will lead a tour of the prison cells.
“We are excited about the leadership camp and the skills exchange among the group of emerging youth leaders. They join us, having been selected by their own structures to represent them and their broader communities during the camp.”
Other activities planned for the camp will include a knowledge hunt around the historic site, group presentations as well as pledges by the participants to take forward the legacies of Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada and all those who spent years behind bars for the liberation of our country.
Through the pledges, young people would be making a commitment to continue the work back in their communities.
The Foundation’s Executive Director, Neeshan Balton said, “Learning about activism in a place that symbolises resistance and the triumph of the human spirit makes the camp particularly significant. Young people are able to draw the links between the struggles of the past, to those faced by youth today, taking inspiration and hope from the stories of leaders, who despite being imprisoned, never lost hope in the ideal of freedom.”
