South Africa continues to face a host of interconnected socioeconomic and environmental challenges. These include the triple challenges of inequality, poverty, and unemployment, which are further compounded by climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

Just as birthdays are traditionally marked with celebration and some reflection, South Africa’s Constitutional Court recently blew out the candles in celebration of its 30th birthday, having continued to make a positive impact on society.

In June this year, South Africa marked 70 years since the adoption of the Freedom Charter on 26 June 1955 by the Congress of the people. On that day, brave patriots assembled in a multiracial convention in Kliptown and adopted a document that remains the cornerstone to the founding of our Constitution and democracy.

In 1994, South Africa inherited an economy that was structurally designed to exclude the vast majority of South Africans. Apartheid’s distorted policies had created a dual economy: one of wealth and privilege and another of poverty and exclusion.

As Youth Month draws to a close for 2025, let us continue to keep in our minds, hearts and behaviours the courage the young people of the 1976 Soweto uprising, where they protested apartheid’s oppressive education policies, sparking a movement for
equality.