It is no news that South African youth face innumerable and complex challenges. Like most young people around the world, they are forced to contemplate their future on a warming planet and increasingly prone to weather disasters, while navigating growing global geopolitical uncertainty.
But they also face other challenges. Higher education, for example, remains out of reach for many, and youth unemployment remains unsustainably high at around 64%.
Over the years, there have been a number of attempts, ranging from brochures to highly publicized initiatives that promised much but achieved little, to address these problems.
While the intent behind these initiatives has mostly always been noble, they have never succeeded in giving young South Africans what they need most: a platform to share their voice and the will to put their aspirations into action.
Young people have agency and have a say. Only by making sure they are heard, perhaps more importantly, heard, can we begin to address the challenges they face on a daily basis.
The importance of being heard
Throughout history, we have seen how young people by speaking up can change societies, countries and even the world. In recent years, just look at how the work done by Greta Thunberg (still just 19 years old) has added spark and vigor to the climate change movement.
Meanwhile, Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan (now 25), has been an advocate for human rights, especially around women’s and children’s education, since she was 11 years old. Her activism led to her being shot in a Pakistani Taliban attack in 2012 when she was 14. After recovering from the attack, she took her activism around the world and won a Nobel Peace Prize for just 17 years.
Closer to home, the college protests helped push for the decolonization of college curricula, provided economic relief for struggling students, and shed light on the prevalence of gender-based violence on campuses across the country.
Going further back, the Soweto uprising of 1976, led by black youth frustrated with having to learn Afrikaans and the oppressive Bantu education system, turned out to be a pivotal moment in the fight against apartheid.
However, the unfortunate common thread that runs through most of these examples is that the youth involved had to force their voices across local and global platforms. They broke down proverbial door after proverbial door until society had no choice but to listen.
In many cases, young people are still breaking down those doors, hoping that someone with the power to effect change will listen to their intelligent and insightful critiques and contributions to our collective fight for a better life.
That shouldn’t be the case. We should be listening to young people as a matter of course. Their concerns, fears, and hopes are valid, and only by listening to them can we create a world fit for them to inherit.
Provide adequate platforms
As such, the responsibility falls on all sectors of society, from business to government and civil society, to provide the platforms for those voices.
It’s a responsibility we are keenly aware of at FunDza and it’s one of the reasons we’re so focused on youth and young adult literacy. You cannot expect young people to feel comfortable sharing their views and opinions if they are not equipped with the tools they need to express their voice.
But we also recognize that literacy is only a beginning. Young people also need to feel safe in expressing their frustrations, hopes and ambitions, no matter who they speak to. That’s why this year we launched our Dear Mr. President campaign.
The campaign invites young people between the ages of 13 and 25 to write essays addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa. In essays, young writers are asked to detail what they love about South Africa, the challenges their communities face, what isn’t working for them, and proposed solutions they might have to those challenges.
Our hope is that the campaign will help give young people the confidence to speak up, even when faced with immense power.
Of course, there is much more to be done when it comes to providing young South Africans with a safe space to share their voice. We hope that others, across the broad spectrum of society, will join us in trying to encourage and amplify the voices of young South Africans.
Like it or not, change is coming
As resistant to change as many older people are, it will come one way or another. By listening to what young people have to say, we can all ensure that change is fruitful and comes in due time, rather than the result of neglected frustration.
That is something that we should all want and aspire to achieve as soon as possible.
