Ikaneng Primary celebrates youth day

Ikaneng Primary School commemorated the youth of ’76 who took part in the Soweto uprising in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in black schools.

ALSO READ: Locals take fun walk to honour youth

After Afrikaans was adopted in black schools, about 20,000 learners from various schools participated in a demonstration which left numerous people murdered by the apartheid police.

Ikaneng Primary School Youth Day celebration saw learners and teachers of Campus A and B gathered in respective campuses, rendering items of music, dance and poems to commemorate the day.

According to campus B Setswana teacher, Mako Nkoe the school saw a need to commemorate June 16 through their annual events with an effort to teach the learners about the sacrifices that the youth of ’76 had to make in ensuring that South Africa is a democratic country.

ALSO READ: Loal NPO helps fight youth unemployment

“Some of the youth of ’76 sacrificed their lives so that today we have better education and also that we can use different languages.

“This is why we want to capacitate learners to become job viable because our activities today does not only focus our youth history but we also want to encourage them to focus on creative arts and entrepreneurship,” Nkoe said.

She added that the day also focused on equipping learners with ways to express themselves through poems and speeches that focused on youth day so that they will be able to be assertive when searching for employment in the future.

“We do have learners who may struggle when it comes to academics and we should not make them feel ashamed.

This is why we use such events to expose them to extra mural activities so that they can also be able to discover their love, passion and talents.

“We are most likely to be producing future artists, and it all starts here to discover their talents, in their primary level of studying.”

Nkoe said since the school will be celebrating its 60th anniversary in September and with their school being one of the historic places in Soweto, the Youth Day event forms part of the build-up events for the day.

ALSO READ: Jeepers shut down Youth Day in Soweto

“If we don’t commemorate and celebrate such events, our learners will not know where we come from, the struggles that the youth faced back then and all the people that had to sacrifice their lives.

“For our 60th anniversary, we aim to have our learners and guardians in one place for a fun day because as a school we promote togetherness and spending time with those we love but we will also be teaching them how to generate income and entrepreneurship by giving them stock to sell.”