“Youth Day is a very important day, one that reminds me how little I know about the sacrifices made for the education I enjoy today. I sit in class, comfortable and grateful, but unaware of the struggles and courage it took for people before me to make that possible.”
~ Lesego, Infinite Family Net Buddy
Each year on June 16, South Africa observes Youth Day — a day that honours the courage of the young people who marched in Soweto in 1976, demanding the right to learn in their own language, and who became part of a turning point in the country’s history. It is a day of remembrance, pride, and forward motion.
At Infinite Family, we asked our Net Buddies what Youth Day means to them. Their answers moved us.
Lesego’s honesty is disarming and beautiful. She doesn’t claim to know everything about the past — she acknowledges the gap in her own awareness, and in doing so, takes the first step toward closing it. That kind of humble, open curiosity is exactly what learning looks like.
Nyamanda’s perspective reminds us that Youth Day is not only about looking back:
“It is a day that has allowed us as the youth of South Africa to have a voice, to speak up and address the injustices that we face as young people, and to let the world hear us. Youth Day means that we are the leaders and the future.”
For Nyamanda, this day is alive. It has given a generation permission to be heard — and an expectation to lead.
And then there’s Quinton, who captured it all in one line: to him, Youth Day means “celebrating being young and hopeful for a greater future.”
Simple. Profound. Everything.
Together, our teens tell a story that is bigger than any one of them. They are not passive recipients of history — they are its next chapter. They carry the weight of what came before them, and they are choosing to carry it with grace, voice, and hope.
This is why we do what we do.
At Infinite Family, Video Mentors from around the world connect with our Net Buddies online — week after week — helping them see their own potential and strive for a better future. Every conversation is a small act of investment in a young person’s future. And as Lesego, Nyamanda, and Quinton show us, these young people are more than ready to meet that investment with something extraordinary. 💛