As the kick off of an exciting cultural exchange we’ll be doing with the South African StudentsforHumanity, we got together in Hilversum. "What would you like to know from a south african youth in Capetown?" Well…. Erhmmm…. What can I say?… A bit hesitant at first, inspiration started flowing pretty soon: “What do you do in your spare time?”, “What kind of music do you listen to?”, “Do you play sports?”, but also deeper questions like “Are you religious?” and “How do you see your future?” A sound basis for a real cultural exchange. Questions that we hope to find answers on, trying to understand the african way of living. And there was great enthusiasm to answer the questions that the <a href=” http://studentsforhumanity.com/about/”>Khayelistha group</a> is interested in. Linde and Darleen will try to explain how the Dutch look at same sex relationships, Anne will write about going out, Lucienne hopes to formulate her biggest dream (and maybe those of others too), Bart will tell you about Dutch traditions and Pim about the role of religion in the Netherlands… but that's just a start! We will have another meeting soon, in which we'll try to answer some of your questions but also think of ...

Refugee VI football club is an initiative by Ephraim Ntlamo 17 years old. Refugee VI is a youth soccer club based in Cape Town, South Africa.  It was formed in September 2009. The purpose of this team is not only to kick some balls around.  According to the United Nations Refugee Agency [UNHCR] South Africa hosts some 40,00 refugees and over 100,000 asylum -seekers. A large part of these refugees are unaccompanied children between the age group of 15 and 18 who fled their countries on their own without any friend nor family member. After the xenophobic attacks in May 2008  the relationship between foreign nationals from other African states  and South African local communities became fragile.  As a refugee child my self I thought it would be necessary to form a sport institution that will can be part of the solution towards the difficult integration process and that will also give refugee children something  to keep themselves busy thinking positively about life, bring back the the fun, friendship, self esteem and confidence which I learned we  refugee children miss badly. The real issue that drove me to spend most of my time getting this team together was the fact that refugee children face different sorts of discrimination. This discrimination becomes ...

My vision for our group, Students for Humanity, is that we become active members in our communities. That we bring about positive change in people’s lives. And I take it upon myself to go out there into our communities and find out what exactly are some of the things that we can help them out with. I know of many struggling, community-based organizations that I feel we can assist.  I am also willing to go out there and find people who are willing to donate to or sponsor those organizations, so that they can continue with the good work that they are doing. -- MCYB We, as students for humanity, want to do something important for our communities. So I want to contribute on the orphanage side, because I like working with people and children. To me, helping young people and working with young minds is what I enjoy most. I will also help finding sponsors. -- mfundo I would like to be responsible for the compilation of short stories. I think that it is important for us to express our creativity and not let our talents fade, I mean, it is very rare for one to see young people actually having a short ...

Image under the creative commons by D-G-Butcher From my knowledge and experience of culture up until this point, I can define culture as the shared expression of behaviors and interactions, and affective understanding that is learned through a process of socialization. These shared expressions identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group. Culture is the way one expresses his or her self according to the way of one's family belief-like style of living and it holds the history of one's people. I am a Xhosa child and I was raised under and taught the Xhosa rituals and customs. Some of the practices that I do, I actually perform them because it is a must and I do not even know the meaning of them, nor the idea behind it all. Some of us, as the youth we do not value our culture because of the things affecting us in this generation. – Mfundo My life has been a reflection of what many young people are thinking about culture. For some reason I don’t seem to get across the fact we do things that are different but we are the same. This is the reason I say I ...

The Students for Humanity were part of an exciting discussion that was based on a cultural exchange we'll be doing a Netherlands-based youth activism organisation. The Students were asked, 'What would you like to know from a dutch youth in Netherlands?'. Then we asked them to write down a key word (from the discussion). Key words were scrambled amongst them and they had to pick a keyword from a pile. The keyword they ended up with was the topic of their blogpost today. Here's what they had to say on each keyword (issue): (image under the creative commons by Feuillu) Nosizwe on 'Challenge': If the question was directed to me the first thing that would come to my mind would be how things don’t always go the way I want them to. Now I would say the one challenge that most of us face would be getting our voices heard especially when people don’t even want to listen to what you have to say. We're all faced with different challenges as we aren’t raised in the same families and aren’t influenced by the same things and sometimes the decisions we make are the main source of our challenges. Nontombi on 'Influence': What influences me the ...

I have a dream about my career not dreams like most people do then they got into a cage that they are stuck of choosing at the end on which dream that they must go for. My dream is to be a guy that is dreaming the world of the new technology. I want to work with computers for the rest of my life. Everyday I am on my cell phone because I haven’t own a computer yet, just surfing the net and figuring how it works and how it is operating. Fast cars, I like them so much and even dreaming of driving one. I like racing as I like competing at school, actually doing that with myself. I want to drive. I would love to own a house that is designed by me, because I love things that I own and one day say “That thing was designed by me”. And not thinking of marrying, the reason would be because I love my job than anything else. I also want to be a body builder and even be part of the World Wrestling. By the one and only, Siphe Mananga (Mr. Nice Guy). My dream is to ...

Dear South Africa, I am one of the proudly South African youth that does not find Caster`s problem funny. We all know that Caster`s gender is neither a boy nor a girl, she is a hermaphrodite as we have seen and heard from the media. We as the group of students from COSAT running the organisation and website studentsforhumanity.com, do not find this matter as amusing as the media does. In considering this matter we think that at the moment the S.A`s 800m gold medalist Caster Semenya needs our support regarding to her situation. I, personally, never liked this thing gender testing but in sports it is all about fair play. If Caster was not tested and continued her career it would be unfair to her competitors. It is not up to us to decide what and how should be done. So we have to watch and correct what’s being done wrongly by the government. All and all I would like all the South African and others to support Caster Semenya during these hard times of her life. Regards, Yamkela (Yara) Hlehliso Dear Managers of sports, I'm one of the students that are part of the organisation called ...

Everyone now is turning into a Rasta out there. The Rastafarian religion is becoming popular nowadays especially to the youngsters of South Africa. You now find your brother not eating meat and starting to wear the Rastafarian colours. Maybe if you are having a conversation he will start to talk about the great Haile Selassie because he calls himself a Rastafarian. Now the question is what attracts them in Rastafarism? Could it be the colours, the style, the dreadlocks, the rituals, the gatherings that they have, where they sing and do poetry or just maybe the fact that Rastas are spiritually using what they call the holy herb (marijuana or ganja)? The Rastafarians have their god, Haile Selassie I, who died in 1975. The Rastafarians don’t believe that he died because they claim that there was never a grave for him. They recall that Selassie was the greatest mighty. The Rastafarians do not believe in schools either, because they believe that what you are being taught in schools is to fool you into seeing things the way you went suppose to see them. They also are against the law that allows people of the same sex to be involved with each ...

During the past, in the apartheid era protests, street-burnings and school burnings were common; it was done when ever people were requesting something they were in need of from the Government. And the government would then attend to their needs as quickly as possible, thus satisfaction will be found inside their blameless hearts. Lately, in the 15th of May 2009, my fellow neighbors demanded various services from the government which where basically consisting of the basic human rights in the accordance of the Legislation of South Africa. The first day of the strike, all government transportation was invaded, stoned and many vehicles burnt. As a result many innocent passengers got injured. It went on, other public transports were not allowed to pass on. They then started doing what lead to what I call ‘My communities misconception'. In a blink of an eye, over a distance of approximately 225 meters on the travel road, there were burning tires everywhere. Cardboard, cans, papers and plastics were burnt; no public or private car would have been able to pass through that extremely dangerous fire, or in a more precise way ‘combustion'. Teachers say "combustion, is a process in which a substance reacts with oxygen to ...

As I walk down the streets of my community, turning a blind eye on poverty, rape that has taken over the community, not even noticing the 10 year old smoking weed in the street corner. All my eyes can see is the child wearing his old, tired uniform. When I look at the child I look back, thinking about the situation he comes from. He leaves home hungry, didn't have breakfast nor did he have supper the previous night. But he's not hungry for food, he's not in need for money, all he is hungry for, in need is education, he's driven by his passion for education. He wakes up everyday with a choice of either joining his mates on the street corner and also smoke weed but he sees himself making the same decision everyday, the decision of going to school, and empowering himself with education. He doesn't use his background or the fact that he has no clue whether someone will ever notice how hungry he is for education and offer him money for varsity. His situation is what drives him, what makes him strive for more. What he is today is the main thing that is driving him to ...