Fruits of Democracy

The time for young people to critically engage what Heritage means to them has come.  Despite the challenges faced by the Red Location Precint, young people still have the chance to engage truthfully and critically on what the stories inside NMB's many museums and Heritage sites mean to them and whether they could taste, feel or experience the intended fruits of democracy embedded in these numerous walls.

This is premise of the event, Fruits of Democracy, is born from.

The great stories portrayed in the NMB's historc buiildings remain as one of NMB's greatest milestones and legacies imprinted in the hearts of its NMB citizens.

I dare say it is imprinted in the minds of young people who have the responsibility to ensure its legacy does not disappear from the hidden legacies and good stories that reside in NMB.

This is the crux of InkuluFreeHeid and AIESEC NMMU in partnership with CANRAD, Athenaeum and Red Location Museum Cultural Precinct wanted to ensure that this invaluable history remains and speak to how it shapes young people of today as today's history makers of tomorrow, through its inaugural event, Fruits of Democracy.

Fruits of Democracy is therefore a dialogue of Heritage from the mouths of babes. We have to ask, how do young people see Heritage? How has Heritage evolved from their views and experiences?

Through the partnership with Aiesec NMMU, we took it a step further and said that leadership of young people forms a crucial part of history making, hence we must celebrate today's excellence of NMB youth in their diverse sectors.

Closing the doors of a beautiful museum does not give us- young and old - the complacency to close the doors on the beautiful told and untold stories that NMB holds in every corner of this friendly city.

That is why we have chosen NMB's gifted Poetic Soul and who recently launched her album to narrate NMB's known and unknown stories of NMB through poetry. This is why we have another young person, The Herald Columnist, Kazeka Mashologu Kuse being the MC of our inaugural event at the Atheauneum Little Theatre.

ALL FOR FREE!!!

We wanted young people to come into a space where they openly share their views in one space rather than talk in their individual separate space. We wanted the, to agree and disagree with no fear or favour and to come up with solutions.

There is power in a group of young people coming together for a cause. And dissecting the Fruits of democracy (or lack thereof) is one of the ways young people can have agency and start reclaiming their power in a democratic dispensation.

As young people we are however, aware that we do not have the wisdom that older people who have walked before us have gained; hence we saw the need for integenerational conversations to happen in the same space. It is for this reason we know our sponsors, MBDA, City of Champions, NMMU Alumni, CANRAD, NMMU Alumni Association and NMBT will bring to the table. They will bring to life the African wisdom of "Inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili".

It is also why we trust you, attendees of our event, to be there dressed in your traditional and Afro-centric outfits to embody all our different cultures in the 23rd September 2015 at the Little theatre of the Atheaneum.

Let's begin, now to open the dialogue and go beyond talk shop of how legacies are made, kept alive and taken forward within the context of young people's experiences and valuable journeys. Let's begin by filling up the the room to capacity.

Join the movement to celebrate excellence of NMB youth and heritage through their eyes on 23 September 2015 from 18:00.

Revolutionaries are built by young people...history has shown us.