Last weekend more than 300 young people from rural Zululand travelled to a youth festival. Niki Moore was there
The taxis and vans that rolled up at the James Nxumalo Agricultural College just south of Ulundi last Friday afternoon were riding low on their axles: not only from the numbers of eager young people inside, but also from the weight of their hopes and aspirations. About 365 in all they came from Nongoma, Vryheid, Melmoth and Mahlabatini.
Some in their late teens, others in early adulthood, they were poised on the threshold of life, ready to make something of themselves.
But living in deep rural Zululand they already had disadvantages: poor schooling, little access to resources, few skills and no experience. This was what the weekend gathering was going to try to change.
Coordinated by the Masakhane Youth Project, based in Ulundi, the youth rally brought together young people from disadvantaged backgrounds for three purposes: to raise their morals and their morale, to give them access to role models, and to give them a jolly good time.
”We have been hosting this type of rally annually for the past 10 years,” says Masakhane chairperson Sabelo Zwane.
He said the aim was to bring the young people together through a festival that includes choral music competitions and speeches by well-known people.
”After the rally we will have follow-up workshops in the different areas so that the youth can carry on with what they have learned here.”
The teenagers and young adults who arrived on Friday, though, were chomping at the bit for one reason only the choral music competition. Even as their taxis and buses left their homes in the early hours of that morning the outing had been marked by song. It was a rhythmic mass that arrived and just kept on singing.
On Friday afternoon, after registration and accommodation was allocated, they assembled in the college hall for a welcome address, announcements and the programme for the weekend. The evening also provided a dress rehearsal for the music competition, as one group after the other, belt out a tune or two.
The next morning the festival took off on a serious note. HIV/Aids was top of the agenda. Department of Health officials spoke at length about the pandemic and took questions from the floor. The subject was rounded off with a resolution in which the group undertook to abstain from sex in early life, and to expose and report incidents of child abuse.
Many of the boys had their egos charged by the presence and talk from Wanda Ncoya and Thokozi Zungu of the AmaZulu soccer team. They undertook to inculcate relevant values that makes a professional sportsman, such as abstinence from alcohol and smoking.
The two were inundated by questions and criticism about the neglect of the rural people by professional teams and soccer associations. One of the youths charged: ”Why don’t you come out here and teach us to play?”
The two players undertook to take this message back to Premier Soccer League officials and promised to investigate the possibility of rural soccer workshops and recruitments.
Proceedings for Saturday were closed by Reggie Khumalo from Radio Ukhozi, rendering a motivational talk about life skills, and writer Otty Nxumalo who in his keynote address spoke about public speaking and personal presentations.
The final day of the rally was devoted to the music competition under the watchful eye of music producer Bhekisiso Ngcobo, assisted by popular music presenter Linda Sibiya and the SABC’s Usiso Buthelezi .
A total of 25 groups took part, including various genres of gospel, traditional, mbaqanga and maskanda music.
It was the daughters of the late maskanda artist Umfazi Omnyama who stole the limelight.
It was difficult to break the crowds away from their singing on Sunday night after the show.
Ngcobo pledged to come into the rural areas more often to look for recording talent. As for the youths, they had arrived with expectations and excitement, and from the jamboree that characterised the rally, they seemed to have returned home with happiness and hope.