Jimmy Masingi urges Alex residents to celebrate their own heroes

In the spirit of Mandela Day or Month, Action SA members from 108, 109 and 116 were handing out winter jackets to Japie Vilankulu’s family members and giving out bread and soup to the children in Alexandra.

Councillor Shadrack Mkhonto said, “We are here in Alex, and we are so excited that we are coming here to feed the community of Alexandra. We also got a message from the president of Action SA Herman Mashaba to Japie Vilankulu’s family, which is his younger brother Michael, brother-in-law Bosch, his sister Maide and older brother Harrison.

“The president asked me to come here and hand over the winter jackets to the family. I am very excited to be here with the other members from different wards coming here to support us as we do the handover as instructed by the president. “

While given the platform, the chairperson of the Japie Vilankulu Education Trust Jimmy Masingi urged the community to start learning and celebrating its own unsung heroes in youth month as they also fought for freedom in 1976.

“To the community of Alexandra, we want to say to you, stop going to Soweto when it’s June 16, to go celebrate Hector Peterson, we are not taking anything away from Hector, but what we are saying is that we do have our own hero’s here in Alexandra. Why do you leave your own heroes and go celebrate other people’s heritage?

“As the English says, ‘charity begins at home’, let us do that for us, so as from today going forward on June 16,17, and 18, let us gather amongst ourselves as the community of Alexandra and celebrate one of our own which is Japie Vilankulu. And I know it’s not only Japie who died, a lot of other people died but just like in Soweto that it was not only Hector Peterson who died but there is that one person who can be used to represent the struggle of what happened. In Alexandra as Japie Vilankulu Education Trust, we have chosen Japie and we want the politics to stop,” Masingi said.

Masingi questioned why people don’t ask why is it only Hector Peterson who is celebrated in Soweto, “Why don’t you ask the people in Soweto why they chose Peterson? We can’t celebrate all of them, but we need to choose one and we chose Japie as he was the first victim who died in 1976.”

The Vilankulu family expressed gratitude to the party for this thoughtful gesture, “I don’t have much to say the only thing that I can do is express my gratitude to Action SA for honouring us to show that they really mean business when they said that they will be with us as Japie Vilankulu’s family. So now I can see, and I strongly believe that they are doing their best so may the good lord bless you all,” said Michael Vilankulu.

“We want to thank Action SA and President Herman Mashaba for providing these jackets for the family. This is the beginning of good things and the Vilankulu family and Japie Vilankulu’s name will be taken to where it belongs to the next level because Japie Vilankulu has been neglected for years. So now, we are starting with the family to show the family that we are much committed to taking Japie’s name to where it belongs,” Masingi said.

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