The Minister of Arts and Culture, Paul Mashatile, says government will use social media to promote its Freedom Month programmes.
He was speaking at the launch of Freedom Month in Pretoria on Thursday. Mashatile says many South Africans, especially the youth spend most their time on social media such as Twitter.
Mashatile says: “We need to reach young people through social media. We have many programmes that we will be promoting on Twitter. It is important to get young people involved in the celebrations of our 20 years of freedom and 20 years of democracy.”
Some of the campaigns that government will be intensifying during the month of April include the “Tell your story campaign” where South Africans will have an opportunity to narrate their stories of freedom and democracy. South Africans from all walks of live are encouraged to tell their stories.
The theme for the 2014 Freedom Month celebrations is “South Africa – a Better Place to live in. We have a good story to tell”.
Mashatile says the 27th of April is a historic milestone and all South Africans should celebrate it. “In less than a month from today, on the 27th of April, it will be twenty years since all South Africans exercised their democratic right to vote in our country’s first democratic elections.
“In many ways this historic milestone was a culmination of what we fondly refer to as the “South African miracle”; where as a nation we were able to rise above our bitterly divided past and hold hands towards a shared future,” says Mashatile.
Freedom Day commemoration and celebrations will be held at Union Buildings on 27th April and President Jacob Zuma will give a keynote address.
Click below to watch to Minister of Arts and Culture Paul Mashatile.
– By Sthembiso Sithole
