On the 22nd of June 2019, Ubuhlebezwe Municipality had a Youth Day commemoration celebration at Peace Initiative Hall, with the hall full comprising of all the youth from the municipality’s 14 wards.
Ubuhlebezwe Municipality Deputy Mayor CLLR EB Ngubo reminded the future leaders of Ubuhlebezwe of the importance of this gathering” This day is celebrated to recognize the role of youth in the liberation of South Africa from the Apartheid regime. The grounds of the movement lay in a 1974 official order which made Afrikaans compulsory in schools. The order stated that Afrikaans be used in conjunction with English for teaching in schools. Certain subjects like social studies, mathematics and algebra were required to be taught in Afrikaans while others like home science and general science were required to be taught in English. The use of local languages was prohibited was these subjects citing a provision in the constitution which laid down Afrikaans and English as the official languages of the country.
That was the struggle of the youth of 1976 each generation faces its struggle as we have seen with the recent call that fees must fall movement which was aimed at higher education institutions.”
Cllr further reiterated the call for unemployed youth to engage the municipality and other relevant structures on grants for funding businesses and to access other streams income while ending with a quote from the Wretched of the earth by Frantz fanon- “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”
Article by: M. Dladla