Re-tracing the steps of June 16 heroes
Residents embarked on a walk to commemorate Youth Day.
Block 88 hosted its annual Youth Day celebration in honour of the class of 76′.
According to Siya Ndzonga of Block 88, They wanted to celebrate this day in a more meaningful manner and the way that will make them reflect and honour the struggle and what the youth of 1976 fought for.
“We believe that our frustrations can only be heard through our creativity and we create what we think will help us advance in life. We are not creative because we are special, we are creative because it’s our alternative to eradicate poverty,” said Ndzonga.
Their Youth Day celebration had more activities this year had including a 5km run, fun walk, indigenous games and street art. It started with the 5km run in the morning and Ndzonga said they are hoping to continue with the running culture with the aim of leading a healthy lifestyle.
After the run, they had a fun walk whereby they had people coming from different locations including Zola, Emdeni, Protea, Protea Glen, Rivalea, Phiri, Mapetla and Chiawelo flats patrons. People were walking and chanting struggle songs and singing with ecstasy and full of energy.
The walk was followed by games hosted by Only In London 1804 from Orlando East. The team came through to host indigenous games for the community at the store and they had almost every indigenous games played during the festivities of the Youth Day.
The indigenous games took people back in the days, back to childhood days where they used to play ibhathi, umgusha, amatopo, ama’ali, shigago, dibeke, diketo and morabaraba among others.
Artists were also invited and they made murals on the walls with Psalm 1, a famous graffiti artist who created a face of someone with a pen on their mouth that looked like a cigarette but it was a pen that is meant to write a book.
Another artist, Sandile Mushwane was painting and creating murals and the children that took part were painting their favourite cartoon characters and things they like.
“We thank everybody that came through to support us and those that continues to pray for us,” said Ndzonga.
Block 88 is a streetwear store situated next to the Chiawelo flats. It was formed last year by Ndzonga who says he has the love for streetwear and aims to bring it to the community.
The shop sells t-shirts and caps and according to Ndzonga, since they opened the shop, residents are supportive and they are aiming to open another shop in another place as time goes on.
He said most of the people go to town for street ware that is why he and his partners decided to bring the clothing to local areas.
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