Today is Youth Day
June is Youth Month, with a specific focus on 16 June - also known as Youth Day.
YOUTH Month pays tribute to the school pupils who lost their lives during the 16 June 1976 uprising in Soweto.
On this day, 15 000 students gathered at Orlando West Secondary School with the intention of participating in a peaceful march to the nearby Orlando Stadium, to protest against the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction at South African schools.
Police and armed forces responded to the protest violently and the first fatality of the day was Hector Pieterson (12) who was fatally wounded.
A further 175 others were also killed that day.
This violent backlash to what was meant to be a peaceful march caught the attention of the international community, and led to many countries imposing sanctions on South Africa in an attempt to force the apartheid government to ease its repressive rule.
We asked some local youths what messages they felt were most important, and asked them to share those messages with their classmates, other youngsters and the future generation.
Here’s what they had to say:
