Youth Day 2021 was incredibly memorable for me. We commemorated the 45th anniversary of the Soweto uprising by engaging with likeminded young people interested in making a change and difference within their communities. We embarked on a tour to the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, once known as the Pretoria Maximum Prison. It was…
This year, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation challenged me pay tribute to the youth of ’76 differently than from I had become used to. My experience had become typical, what with adults proudly donning school uniforms from head to toe, to social gatherings supposedly in memory of June 16. Had it not been for the time…
The trip to the dark and gloomy gallows reconnected me with a very important part of the South African liberation history, yet one I was never aware of before. When the warder-cum-tour guide took us around, explaining exactly what happened inside the gallows to condemned prisoners like Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu, I felt short-changed that for the longest while…
The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation’s Youth Day event in Pretoria was for me an eye opening experience. Under different circumstances, no one would have anticipated going to the gallows, unless driven by a sense of conviction. Imagine having your last meal, expected to down it knowing that the next day would be your very last sunrise.…