photographs by Yeshiel Panchia
Today marks 45 years of the Soweto Uprising in South Africa, when thousands of unhappy schoolchildren challenging an apartheid regime fearlessly took to the streets protesting being taught in Afrikaans. June 16 1976 ended in fire, fear and tears. Commemorated as Youth Day in South Africa, FORBES AFRICA captures the rousing emotions of today, but in a boxing ring in inner city Johannesburg, where the youth now bond over sport as part of a broader upliftment program.
June 16 is a hallowed day in South African history, observed as Youth Day commemorating the student uprising of 1976 in Soweto which saw students lead demonstrations against an education system that would eventually lead to menial jobs. Some 20,000 students partook in what was to be a peaceful protest, but when the day was over, at least 176 had been killed by the bullets and brutality of apartheid. The children laid down their lives but it marked a new chapter in South Africa’s liberation struggle.
Across South Africa today are events marking the memory of that fateful day, and FORBES AFRICA joined one such occasion of hope and healing in Hillbrow, a residential neighborhood in Johannesburg, for the opening of a third gym for inner-city youth by Fight With Insight, a youth empowerment initiative directed by Luke Lamprecht, a child protection and development specialist.
“Children have had dreams put on hold or broken altogether; schooling has been disrupted; families separated; and food and social security systems taken away from them.”
Lamprecht founded the first such gym in Johannesburg in 2006, and chose Youth Day this year to mark the opening of his latest outlet, offering daily training to aspiring boxers as also supplying healthy meals to them.
“2020 has been a bad year to be a child,” says Lamprecht to FORBES AFRICA, referring to the Covid-19 pandemic that put the brakes on the social and psychological development of young children, and dried up the support networks and sustenance that many of them depended on to lead normal lives.
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“Children have had dreams put on hold or broken altogether; schooling has been disrupted; families separated; and food and social security systems taken away from them.”
His initiative aims to meet some of these deficiencies, offering camaraderie, exercise, food and above all, belief and purpose to children in need.
The advocacy aspect is not new to the personnel at Fight With Insight, as they have provided training and food even within Covid-19 lockdown restrictions all of last year. At their height, they served 1.4 tonnes of food a day. However, this June 16 marks an easier time than the last, with children ending training before their meal by breaking a paper chain – symbolizing breaking free of the challenges and restrictions that hold them back.
Many of the urban youth at the center say they find both their physical and emotional sustenance inside the ring. They are in it to win this perennial fight called life.
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