The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) says it’s important for young South Africans to know the role their fellow youth played in the struggle for liberation.
The agency said this while on tour of Kgosi Mampuru – the second correctional facility in Pretoria where it announced its decision to take over 40 of the 500 Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu Scholarship Fund beneficiaries.
Our Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu Scholarship Fund beneficiaries are currently at the Hapo Museum in Freedom Park #YearOfTheYouth #Kalushi40 pic.twitter.com/jdEc9atVSH
— NYDARSA (@NYDARSA) April 5, 2019
The tour was part of the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the execution of struggle icon, Solomon Mahlangu, by apartheid regime.
Earlier this week, the National Heritage Council announced that Mahlangu’s home in Mamelodi, west of Pretoria, will be turned into a national heritage site.
“Most of the people who worked here have resigned because of the trauma.”- Mr Ratlogo #Kalushi40 pic.twitter.com/NpvXgm2oHt
— NYDARSA (@NYDARSA) April 5, 2019
NYDA spokesperson, Lerato Gambu, says the agency is not only giving beneficiaries financial assistance, but an experience of who Mahlangu was.
“It is important from the perspective of the NYDA that beneficiaries of the scholarship fund to have first hand experience of what Solomon Mahlangu went through and they must understand why the NYDA has taken its time to honour this hero.
“Because you will understand that education was critical, like any other young person, Solomon wanted to be a teacher. So we as NYDA we said a vision of any young person is to become educated. So we therefore said that let’s take these young people through the scholarship fund. But at the end of the programme they must then come through and experience the person that they are befitting from what he went through,” Gambu indicated.
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