By Sello Hatang:
As we mark Youth Month, our word of the week is Youth.
Every June, South Africans pause to remember the courage of the young people who took to the streets in 1976 and changed the course of our history. They were schoolchildren, dreamers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who believed that their voices mattered. They stood against injustice at great personal cost, and their actions became a defining chapter in our nation’s journey to freedom.
But Youth Month is not only about looking back. It is also about looking forward. It is about asking ourselves what kind of future we are creating for the young people of today. It is about reflecting on whether we are honouring the sacrifices of the past through our actions in the present.
Too often, youth is defined by age. Yet youth is much more than a number. Youth is a spirit. It is the courage to imagine a better world when others cannot see it. It is the determination to keep going when obstacles seem overwhelming. It is the ability to dream beyond present circumstances and to believe that change is possible.
One of the greatest mistakes society can make is to see young people only as future leaders. Young people are not merely leaders of tomorrow; they are leaders today. They are entrepreneurs creating jobs, artists shaping culture, activists raising important questions, innovators developing solutions, and community builders making a difference where they live. Every day, countless young people across South Africa are proving that leadership does not begin with a title. It begins with a decision to make a positive impact.
At the same time, we must be honest about the challenges facing our youth. Too many young people wake up every morning searching for opportunities that seem out of reach. Too many leave school or university only to encounter unemployment and uncertainty. Too many are exposed to crime, substance abuse, violence, and environments that limit rather than expand their potential.
The danger of these challenges is not only economic. It is also spiritual and emotional. When hope begins to disappear, dreams become casualties. A society that allows its young people to lose hope risks losing its future.
That is why investing in youth cannot be reduced to speeches, slogans, or commemorative events. Investing in youth means creating opportunities. It means improving education. It means ensuring that young people have access to skills, mentorship, employment, entrepreneurship support, sports, arts, and culture. It means building communities where young people can thrive rather than merely survive.
Throughout my life, I have been inspired by young people. Whether through initiatives focused on education, youth development, hiking mountains with young leaders, or simply listening to the aspirations of young people in communities across our country, I have been reminded repeatedly that the future is often already present in the dreams of our youth. Hence, my support for organisations such as Women4Girls, who change the lives of young women.
I have learned that young people do not expect perfection from leaders. They expect honesty. They expect opportunity. They expect adults to create pathways rather than barriers. Most importantly, they expect us to believe in them.
Youth Month also reminds us that every generation inherits a responsibility. The generation of 1976 fought against oppression. The generation of today must fight against poverty, inequality, unemployment, corruption, hopelessness, and division. The battlegrounds may be different, but the need for courage remains the same.
We must also remember that youth is not something that belongs only to the young. There are people advanced in years who remain youthful because they continue to learn, serve, dream, and grow. Equally, there are young people who have been forced by circumstances to abandon hope too soon. Perhaps the challenge for all of us this Youth Month is to reclaim something of that youthful spirit, a spirit of possibility, resilience, curiosity, and action.
As I often say, “The greatest injustice is not when young people fail, but when society fails to give them a fair chance to succeed.” Our responsibility is not to walk the journey for them, but to ensure that the road ahead is not blocked by obstacles we have the power to remove.
This week, let us celebrate our youth not as a problem to be solved, but as a potential to be unlocked. Let us listen more carefully to their voices, invest more intentionally in their growth, and create more opportunities for them to flourish.
The young people of 1976 gave us a powerful legacy. The question before us today is whether we will leave an equally meaningful legacy for the generations that follow.
For when young people rise, communities rise. When communities rise, nations rise. And when a nation invests in its youth, it invests in its greatest source of hope.
Youth is not merely the future. Youth is the power that shapes the future today.
#YouthMonth
#ReHataMmoho
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