If you’ve been part of our Infinite Family for a while, you’ll know that Heritage Day on 24 September is a public holiday when South Africans come together, typically around a braai (BBQ), to celebrate our heritage and turn our historical division into a source of collective pride and identity.
It is a happy occasion when South Africans gather to embrace our rich cultural diversity and usually a highlight on the annual calendar. Yet, if you’ve been following the news, you’ll know that South Africa has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately and that, instead of uniting around heritage, South Africans everywhere are uniting in their opposition to a national scourge: Gender-based violence (GBV).
Inevitably, it’s an issue that most impacts the communities where Infinite Family’s teens live and one that troubles us greatly. In the last week alone, nine women in one Johannesburg community have lost their lives to GBV, and South Africans can’t simply paper over the cracks and celebrate “ubuntu” in the usual way. Gatherings are being planned across the country to protest GBV and commemorate its many, many victims Our thoughts this Heritage Day will be with all those affected and we’ll have more to say on the subject in the next email from our Founder, Amy Stokes. Meantime, like the vast majority of South Africans, we continue to believe deeply in the ubuntu mantra ‘I am because you are”.