Maimane to address Fort Hare students for Youth Day

DEMOCRATIC Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane will be making his way to the University of Fort Hare Alice campus today for the party’s Youth Day programme.

Maimane will address students who are governed by the party’s student wing, Daso.

Daso reclaimed the university’s SRC from Pasma in the April elections after losing the student leadership last year.

Maimane’s spokeswoman Portia Adams said the party leader would be commemorating the students of June 1976, who lost their lives in the struggle.

“The leader will commemorate Youth Day in both Johannesburg and Alice in the Eastern Cape,” said Adams.

Maimane will be joined by DA Eastern Cape leader Nqaba Bhanga, DA Youth Federal Leader Luyolo Mphithi, Eastern Cape DA youth chairman Mawethu Kosani and Daso UFH president Xolani Jaji.

Bhanga said the commemoration of June 16 should be seen as an opportunity to engage the youth of the country on the new agenda. Thousands of young South Africans marched from their Soweto schools to the Orlando Stadium in 1976 to protest having to learn in Afrikaans. Bhanga said they were committed to an agenda of their generation and the youth of 2018 has a task to find its own agenda and ways of advancing it.

“We are particularly happy that the leader is coming down to the Eastern Cape and to Fort Hare where young leaders have gained the trust of the students,” said Bhanga.