It’s hardly news that South Africa’s youth face myriad and complex challenges. Like most young people around the world, they’re forced to contemplate their future on a warming planet that’s increasingly prone to climate disasters, while navigating growing global geopolitical uncertainty.
But they face other challenges too. Higher education, for example, remains out of reach for many, and youth unemployment remains untenably high at about 64%.
Over the years, there have been any number of attempts — ranging from handouts to highly publicised initiatives that promised much but achieved little — to address those problems.
While the intent behind those initiatives has mostly always been noble, they’ve consistently failed to give young South Africans what they need most: a platform to share their voice and the willingness to action their aspirations.
The youth have agency and they have something to say. Only by ensuring that they are heard, perhaps more importantly, listened to, can we begin to address the challenges they face on a daily basis.
The importance of being heard
Throughout history, we’ve seen how young people making themselves heard can change societies, countries, and even the world. In recent years, one need only look at how the work done by Greta Thunberg (still just 19 years old) has added spark and vigour to the climate change movement.
Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai (now 25), meanwhile, has been a human rights advocate, especially around the education of women and children, since she was 11. Her activism led to her being shot in an attack by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012 when she was 14. Having recovered from the attack, she went on to take her activism global, winning a Nobel peace prize at just 17.
Closer to home, university protests have helped push forward the decolonisation of tertiary curricula, brought economic relief to struggling students, and shed light on the prevalence of gender-based violence on campuses around the country.
Going further back, the 1976 Soweto uprising — led by black youths frustrated with having to learn in Afrikaans and the oppressive system of Bantu education — proved to be a pivotal moment in the fight against apartheid.
The unfortunate common thread linking most of these examples, though, is that the young people involved had to force their voices onto local and global platforms. They knocked down proverbial door after proverbial door until society had no choice but to listen.
In many cases, young people are still knocking down those doors, hoping that someone with the power to effect change will hear their intelligent and insightful critiques and contributions to our collective struggle 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.
Providing proper platforms
As such, the onus is on all sectors of society, ranging from business to government and civil society, to provide the platforms for those voices.
It’s a responsibility that we’re profoundly aware of at FunDza and is 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’re not equipped with the tools they need to express their voice.
But we also recognise that literacy is just a start. Young people also need to feel confident in expressing their frustrations, hopes and ambitions, no matter whom they might be addressing. It’s for that reason that this year we are launching our Dear Mr. President campaign.
The campaign invites young people aged between 13 and 25 to write essays addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa. In the essays, the young writers are asked to detail what they love about South Africa, the challenges their communities face, what doesn’t work for them and any proposed solutions they might have to those challenges.
Our hope is that the campaign will help give young people the necessary confidence to express themselves, even when facing up to people with immense power.
There is, of course, a lot more that needs to be done when it comes to giving young South Africans 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 its due course, rather than as the result of unheeded frustration.
That’s something we should all want and aspire to achieve as soon as possible.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.