Forty years after the June 16th Soweto Students’ Uprising in 1976, for many youths in South Africa the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow nation remains, frustratingly, out of reach.
Statistics paint a bleak picture of declining education standards and rising unemployment putting our youth increasingly at risk. Research reveals that up to 50% of the so-called Born-Free generation have dropped out of school and that young people between the ages of 15 and 35 constitute the bulk of South Africa’s unemployed.
But statistics do not measure dreams, encouragement and dedication. In Beyond the Rainbow, Special Assignment investigates a selection of youth empowerment projects in Cape Town, using art, music and digital innovation. We visit the informal settlements of Imizamo Yethu and Masiphumelele, as well as in the apartheid-era dormitory suburbs of Hangberg and Ocean view, along Cape Town’s scenic South Peninsula. And within sprawling patchworks of poverty, wedged between islands of privilege we meet educators, community activists and students who are transforming the rubble of crushed dreams into the bricks and mortar of creativity and hope.
Watch “Beyond The Rainbow” produced by Hazel Friedman on Special Assignment this Sunday 20h30 on SABC 3.
