Saldanha Youth Circles Creates A Space For The Change They Wish To See

Bathabile Dyonase, who is a 25-year-old 2025 activator from Saldanha Bay, Western Cape, is a co-founder of Saldanha Youth Circles. Saldanha Youth Circles is a youth-led, community-driven initiative aimed at providing regular, safe, and confidential talking circles where young people can be heard by speaking openly about real-life pressures without being ashamed in the community of Middelpos, Saldanha.

Saldanha Youth Circles was founded by Dyonase and 4 other colleagues, Sihle Salumane (31), Kwanga Sigwela (25), and Thembalethu Nqohoyi (33), who are all young people who saw a problem amongst the youth in the community of Saldanha and seek to solve it. Their sessions are broken down into weekly themes, and they are joined by professionals such as pastors and social workers who help guide them towards solutions relating to the relevant theme.

The group hosted their very first session for Saldanha Youth Circles on the 29th of August 2026, themed “You Are Not Alone”. It focused on educating young people to understand mental health, stress, and how to cope healthily in a language that makes sense to the people of Saldanha.

Invites to participants and stakeholders were sent out well ahead of time through word of mouth, emails, and social media advertising. The event started at 11:00 o’clock with registration by Sigwela, followed by a morning prayer by a community leader, Mluleki May. Nqohoyi gave a welcoming speech and paved the way to an engaging event.

Salumane, who was the programme director for the day, made sure there was 100% participation, and fun was had. The first speaker was Londiwe Mkhwanazi, who is a social worker at Mfesane under the families programme. Her role was to educate and raise awareness on mental health and mental health issues. Mkhwanazi believes she inspired the participants to speak out and seek help. According to her, the entire event was in line with the theme of “You are not alone” because “seeing young people open up and accept that they have hard days showed everyone in the group that you’re not the only person having hard days”.

These sentiments were in line with the speech that followed from the PR councillor, Lwando Cengimbo. He shared his own lived experience, which the team believes helped show the participants that there is power in a mindset shift.

Pastor Gcinile Ngwenya is a motivational speaker who followed, speaking on mental health issues and isolation- the belief that as a young person you are alone. He quoted bible scriptures, Daniel Chapter 1 and 1st Kings Chapter 19, to emphasise his points. Besides the late arrival of the participants, Ngwenya found the session to have been fruitful and is of the belief that these Saturday meet-ups will bring healing.

According to Mkhwanazi, the event saw people open up about their struggles and being open to receiving guidance. Both Mkhwanazi and Ngwenya are offering their services for free to support the team’s vision in assisting the young people of Saldanha Bay. In line with supporting each other, refreshments were purchased from a local vendor called Vathiswa May. Stomachs were satisfied.

Despite having participants not respecting time, having no projector for presentations, and not having their invite honoured by one of the social workers, the team believes their first session was a success. They plan to work on ensuring that participants arrive on time so nothing is delayed, printing out registers on time, and making arrangements to have a projector available.

Saldanha Youth Circle is a clear indication that when young people come together with a shared vision, we are able to create the change we wish to see.

————————————-

About the Author:

Londiwe Mnguni is an activated young person passionate about community development and social change, with a deep commitment to contributing meaningfully to initiatives that empower and uplift communities.