South Africa will commemorate Freedom Day at the Giyani stadium in Limpopo on the 27th of April 2016.
The theme of this year’s celebrations is “Together Building Better Communities – Local Government is Everybody’s Business.”
The department of Arts and Culture spokesperson Lisa Combrinck says the theme resonates with the social ill currently faced by the country such as racism as well as the fact that South Africans will heed to the polls to vote in the local government elections.
“I think the importance of the theme is firstly build unity amongst South Africans. Earlier this year we saw the resurfacing and resurging of racism in the country and we have embarked on an anti-racism campaign.We have reminded South Africans that our aim is a non-racial, non-sexist South Africa. But in order to strengthen our movement as a nation and towards the social cohesion of our country. One of the starting point is indeed to build better communities hence part of the theme that speaks about together building better communities but also we felt that we also needed to stress that local government is also everybody’s business because after all 2016 is the year in which we will be having local government elections.”
Combrinck also says in building up to the day they will host lectures in a bid to encourage South Africans to be better citizens.
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South Africans will go to the polling stations this year and Combrinck has encouraged the youth to go out in their numbers to vote.
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Background
Freedom Month celebrate the historic occasion in 1994 when South Africa achieved democracy, where all its citizens became free from racial discrimination and oppression. The first democratic elections were held on 27 April 1994, resulting in an unrivalled milestone in the history of South Africa.
This year, Freedom Month will amongst others seeks to reflect on how South Africa achieved its freedom and democracy; the 20 years of our Constitution and the progress made in the past 22 years as well as how South Africans should work together to implement the National Development Plan (NDP).
The year also coincides with the local government elections which are instruments of democracy as local government elections represent people’s right to choose whom they should entrust with their local government affairs of the country.
Watch video below for President Jacob Zuma’s address at the event last year:
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