Birthday celebration in the spirit of ubuntu
FOURWAYS – It was a special celebration when the founder of ACYTIN celebrated her birthday by hosting the second annual AfriCAN Author's Awards for local authors.
As the country celebrated Nelson Mandela’s birthday month, Anthea Thyssen-Ambursley, the founder of the AfriCAN Child Your Time Is Now (ACYTIN) organisation, celebrated her own birthday by celebrating others in the spirit of ubuntu.
Thyssen-Ambursley devoted her birthday to local authors between six and 68 years old when she and her organisation hosted the second annual AfriCAN Author’s Awards for talented African authors in honour of Nelson Mandela’s memory. She decided to commit her birthday to helping others back in 2017, while she was overseas in the United Kingdom with her family in order to receive education.
“In July 2017, I had the saddest birthday ever,” she explained. “I cried and begged my creator that if it was His will for me to to return to South Africa, I would commit my birthday to serve people.
“As a mother, I have realised that my titles mean nothing if I am an absent mother serving my son with financial provision alone. That was the day that I realised that my journey will be to serve people first before I serve money, because God is my source. Your wealth and blessings lie with others. To bless and to serve others guarantees you the greatest wealth of all and the best protection any person would need in life.”
After returning to her home country, Thyssen-Ambursley committed herself to creating a better future for those who live there, including for her own young son. One way she hoped to achieve this was to promote local authors to reflect South African society better.
“The second AfriCAN Authors Awards mission is to promote local stories by locals in order for us to unite, learn and re-invent the desired SA and Africa we are longing for.” she added. “We need to own our stories, we need to heal, we need to give hope and we need to unite as a nation. Brokenness and oppression are the leading challenge around the world, because if we are broken, we are hurting others.”
Thyssen-Ambursley believes that there is no better way to learn and built a country than by reading and learning from each other on how to build our own broken country together, which was the inspiration for the awards.
“This platform is a voice for local authors to write from the heart, let us speak the truth, let us build instead of writing with the intention of becoming rich.
“Authors are teachers and leaders. Let us lead by giving people hope to have a voice that stands for the truth.”
A number of talented African writers, both young and old, were invited to participate in the celebrations including:
- Donald Molosi from Botswana, who is a export filmmaker and Holllywood actor.
- Sibusiso Vilane the first African to climb Mount Everest for his book To the top from Nowhere
- Neville Mellville, a retired advocate and banking ombudsman for his book called Restored Greatness
- Kentse Badirwang’s book Katteys’s Arrow which has been selected to be turned into movie script.
- Dr Lydia Moeng, already an author of 28 books for her work Humanity Rights: A Divine Agenda
- Dr Hlabathi Maapola-Thobejane for the book Crushed and Shattered By Our School’s Prize Giving Ceremonies.
To join ACYTIN in partnership and sponsorship for 2020 please contact Thyssen-Ambursley: 084 602 4439.
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