Soweto citizens celebrate African Day
The community of Soweto came together to celebrate African Day while educating one another about the importance of embracing Africanism.
The City’s food resilience and migration unit hosted a market place as part of African Day celebrations at Soweto Theatre on May 25.
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The day was aimed at showcasing indigenous crops, combined with engaging presentations, storytelling, a poetry show to build social cohesion and celebrating diversity.
The event was well attended by representatives from the City of Joburg, local organisations and residents.
The City of Johannesburg’s head of the sub-unit on migration, Robinson Sathekge, said Africa Day is one of the most important days in their calendar of events that they normally celebrate.
“I don’t think we are there yet, as Africans we still have a long way to go for us to be united. I know in some other countries this is a public holiday but in South Africa we are just observing and celebrating it.
“As we are gathered here today, we are celebrating the most important day and as the City of Johannesburg and our partners thought it will be good to bring this event to the people of Soweto,” said Sathekge.
Sathekge added that people should be mindful that South Africa is not an island and at some stage South Africans needs to acknowledge people from other countries. It is up to South Africans to embrace people from other countries and live side by side with them.
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Martha Langa, a representative from the South African Human Rights Commission spoke about hate crimes.
“The way we were socialised as South Africans led to us as people to practice hate crimes. As Africans we need to unlearn a lot of things despite one’s race because this hate crime is now implemented in the diversity of gender,” said Langa.
She added that everyone is a human being regardless of their race or gender and no one should be discriminated because we are one.
Everyone who lives in South Africa must enjoy three rights which are the right to be respected, the right to be treated with dignity and freedom of association and choice.
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Different farmers and other organisations from different parts of Soweto attended the event to sell and promote their proudly South African hand made products.
“Africa Day is the day in which Africans are supposed to reflect on their lives, what this continent has gone through and also the inheritance that we have,” said Dr Matlotleng Matlou.
