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Youth Action for Economic Freedom

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National Youth Day is celebrated every year on June 16. And 2011 is especially special as it marks the 35th Anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. With The South African Government having declared 2011 as the year of job creation, the focus for this year’s Youth Month commemoration will be on youth empowerment and participation in the country’s socio-economic activities/priorities. Youth Month will be launched under the theme ‘Youth Action for Economic Freedom in our Lifetime’.

In 1975 protests started in African schools after a directive from the previous Bantu Education Department that Afrikaans had to be used on an equal basis with English as a language of instruction in secondary schools. The issue however, was not so much the Afrikaans as the whole system of Bantu education which was characterised by separate schools and universities, poor facilities, overcrowded classrooms and inadequately trained teachers.

On June 16, 1976, more than 20 000 pupils from Soweto began a protest march

On June 16, 1976, more than 20 000 pupils from Soweto began a protest march. In the wake of clashes with the police, and the violence that ensued during the next few weeks, around 700 people, many of them youths, were killed and property destroyed.

This year’s Youth Day event took place at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, Gauteng.

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