The Greater Eldorado Park Youth Innovation Hub (GEPYIH) hosted a vibrant Heritage Day event on September 24, at EXT 4, Eldorado Park, bringing together the community to honour their cultural heritage.
This predominantly coloured township showcased its unique blend of African cultures, traditions, languages, and history.
Centre manager Sinethemba Jikijela emphasised the importance of highlighting diversity within the community, dispelling negative connotations associated with Eldos.
She said the entire purpose was to bring inclusion like the SA Coat of Arms motto, ‘!ke e: /xarra //ke’ meaning unity in diversity.
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“We want to show young people from Eldos and surrounding areas that Greater Eldos is not only about the negative connotation attached to them, but there is also a lot of diversity within the identities,” Jikijela said.
Inclusion and unity
GEPYIH included various cultures in the celebration, such as Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu, and Sotho.
Jikijela explained, “We are one; hence with our celebration; we included various cultures. We want everyone to embrace and see the different cultures. Including the African cuisine we prepared for them, like creamy samp, tripe, cow trotters and chicken curry.”
Coloured community’s cultural identity
Pastor Gaynoliwa Mattera, a community leader and activist, spoke about changing the perception that coloured people are non-existent.
“There is a great secret why the coloured come over to the Western world like the white man. Our parents, our greater Eldos indigents who died, took with them that information.”
She said some believe they are Khoisan, whose language was taken away, and assimilated into the Western culture.
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“I stand under correction, as coloured people we do not have a culture but we have our ways; on Sunday every coloured person goes to a Kosisters house.
“We eat diverse food, mostly curry and many people love breyani but we do a mixture of everything, which means we are truly African.
Another thing about coloured people is that we are not xenophobic or rude. Our elders raised us to respect, which is why we are patient in the coloured nation.”
Mattera highlighted the community’s resilience amidst discrimination and marginalisation under apartheid. She said not much has changed as the community has remained the same since she arrived in 1976.
A proud Tsonga Mavis Stihole, originally from Limpopo, told Soweto Urban that as Tsonga people their favourite food is pap with vegetable relishes like tomatoes, gushe, onion and garlic.
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“We also eat tihobe, which is samp mixed with beans and peanuts, mopane worms and tshopi, made from pumpkin mixed with peanuts, cornmeal and mini rice.
For refreshments, we use the morula fruit to create juice or alcohol. We start by squirting the juice into a container, and for alcohol we allow fermentation to complete.”
The GEPYIH’s Heritage Day event served as a beacon of hope, illuminating the vibrant cultural diversity of Eldos and paving the way for a more inclusive and united community.
