Youth voice and power in South Africa and Africa

“This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind.”

Robert F. Kennedy, United States Senator and brother to the 35th President of the United States, spoke these words at the University of Cape Town on 6 June 1966. Sixty years later, they challenge us to recognise the courage, imagination and determination that young people bring to the struggle for a more just society. 

In post-apartheid South Africa and across postcolonial Africa, that recognition must carry consequences. It must influence who makes decisions, whose concerns receive attention and who has access to the resources needed to turn ideas into action.

For too long, young people have heard a familiar promise: You are the leaders of tomorrow. But tomorrow cannot remain a destination that moves further away whenever young people approach it. A generation cannot be asked to carry the consequences of today’s decisions while being told to wait for permission to shape them.

Young people are leaders now. Their voices matter now. Their power must be recognised now.

This is the urgency I bring to ACTIVATE! Change Drivers’ national campaign, “My Community, My Voice, My Vote.” I see it as a call for young people to recognise their agency, organise around their communities’ needs and insist on meaningful participation in public life.

Each part of the campaign carries a responsibility. “My Community” asks us to belong, to care and to act. “My Voice” calls us to speak with conviction and listen with respect. “My Vote” reminds us that democratic authority comes with choices, and that those entrusted with power must answer to the people.

Citizenship lives in the community meeting where a young woman questions an unexplained budget. It lives in the entrepreneur demanding fair access to opportunities, the student organising for better learning conditions and the volunteer building a response where institutions have fallen short. It lives wherever people turn concern into organised action.

Turning the call to service into action

That spirit of active citizenship gives practical meaning to President John F. Kennedy’s call in his inaugural address on 20 January 1961:

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” 

Young people are putting these words into action. Through teaching, building businesses, organising communities, mentoring others and entering public leadership, they contribute their skills and energy to the country they want to see. Within our Free State ACTIVATE! network, the involvement of Activators in education, entrepreneurship, student leadership and local democratic processes gives this commitment a practical expression.

These young people understand that a country is built through the daily choices of its citizens. Every learner supported, every opportunity created, every community concern organised into a clear demand and every public resource protected from abuse contributes to that work.

“My Community, My Voice, My Vote” gives this responsibility a shared language. It asks each of us: What can I contribute? Whom can I bring into the conversation? What problem can we address together? How will we hold ourselves accountable for the change we seek?

Service and accountability belong together. Young people who contribute to their country retain every right to demand honest government, fair opportunities and responsive institutions. Their willingness to serve strengthens the call for a state that fulfils its own responsibilities.

Yet responsibility without influence is an unfair bargain. We cannot celebrate young people’s resilience while leaving intact the barriers that repeatedly require them to be resilient. A young entrepreneur needs fair procurement processes and access to support. A young organiser needs institutions that respond. A young woman raising concerns about violence needs safety and action.

Recognition must therefore be visible in budgets, appointments, accessible opportunities and decisions. An invitation to speak is meaningful when someone listens, responds and follows through.

The question #DoYouSeeUs should reach every institution that claims to serve young people.

Making history in the streets of destiny

Do you see young people’s work between campaign seasons? Do you hear their proposals before decisions are finalised? Can they access an opportunity without a political connection? When they raise a concern, can they trace what happened to it? These are questions of dignity and democratic accountability.

Post-apartheid South Africa must continually ask whether political freedom is producing meaningful participation in everyday life. Across postcolonial Africa, we must ask whether the promise of self-determination reaches the young people whose futures are being negotiated in their absence.

Our histories differ across countries and communities. But the responsibility to widen participation belongs to all of us. Independence must remain a living commitment to people’s ability to shape their societies. Young Africans should be able to honour those who fought before them while questioning the institutions inherited from those struggles.

History belongs in the classroom, where we must study it carefully. But young people cannot remain only its readers. They are also its authors.

They go out to make history in the streets of destiny: in township halls, village meetings, campuses, workplaces, businesses and public institutions. They claim the streets through peaceful civic action, community service and public debate. They give the walls of our country a new language through art, ideas and messages that make neglected experiences visible.

Those streets must become places where young people can organise without intimidation. Those walls should reflect the ideas and aspirations they have helped shape. Their voices must reach the rooms where budgets are approved, priorities are set and public commitments are made.

As November 2026 approaches, let us make it a month in which this claim to voice and responsibility becomes visible. Let it be an opportunity to move from invitation to participation, from participation to influence, and from influence on accountable action.

We should judge that progress by concrete questions. Did more young people help set the agenda? Were community concerns recorded and taken to the appropriate institutions? Were responsibilities assigned? Were response dates agreed? Can those who participated see what their contribution changed?

A campaign gains lasting value when its energy becomes sustained organisation.

Our responsibility to lead

Young people also have responsibilities within this struggle. We must prepare ourselves, understand the issues we raise and build relationships across differences. We must reject corruption and intimidation, including when they benefit people we support. As young people, we must account for our own conduct as firmly as we demand accountability from others.

Youth leadership earns trust through competence, service and integrity. Age alone cannot guarantee those qualities. Our task is to practise them.

We must make room for young people who are too often excluded from youth spaces themselves: those in rural communities, those living with disabilities, those without reliable internet access and those whose work or caring responsibilities prevent them from attending daytime meetings. A movement that seeks recognition must examine whom it makes room for.

To established leaders, I offer this appeal: share responsibility, open decision-making processes and support emerging leadership with real authority. Mentorship becomes more powerful when it creates opportunities to exercise judgment and be accountable for results.

To young people, I say: recognise and strengthen the leadership you already demonstrate. Connect with others and bring your questions, skills and proposals to decision-making spaces. Organise peacefully and persistently. Understand the systems you seek to change, and build the capacity to transform them.

To ACTIVATE! Change Drivers and our wider network, this campaign presents an opportunity to connect individual courage with collective purpose. We can help turn isolated concerns into shared priorities and support young people to engage institutions with clear demands and sustained follow-up.

“My Community, My Voice, My Vote” is a declaration that we belong to the places whose future we seek to shape. Our communities need our contribution. Our democracy needs our scrutiny. Our continent needs our imagination and our work.

Young people are already making history. Their voice must carry influence, their leadership must have room to grow, and their contribution must help build a society in which everyone can exercise dignity and agency.

The future is already being shaped. We claim our responsibility to shape it—now.

——————————————

Sources:

Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, Cape Town address, 6 June 1966. kennedyhumanrights.org/quote/address-at-the-day-of-affirmation-at-the-university-of-cape-town-cape-town-south-africa-12/

US National Archives, President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 20 January 1961. archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-john-f-kennedys-inaugural-address

——————————————

About the Author:

Tshepo Mabuya is a Free State Connector and member of ACTIVATE! Change Drivers youth network.