Royal accolade for young SA leaders who made a plan
CUPCAKES and candles have landed Cape Town student Patrice Madurai an audience with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.
That is what is in store for Madurai and two other young South African women — Emma Dicks and Nosipho Bele.
They are among 60 young people chosen from countries across the Commonwealth to receive the inaugural Queen’s Young Leaders award in London next month at a reception and awards ceremony at Buckingham Palace, followed by dinner at St James’s Palace.
The programme was established to celebrate the achieve- ments of young people who are taking the lead to transform the lives of others and make a difference in their communities.
Madurai, 22, a final year business science and economics student at the University of Cape Town, founded the Cupcake reSolution project, which helps people to obtain identity documents so they can work and go to school.
In addition, the project takes cupcakes into schools for children who have never enjoyed a birthday celebration. The organisation raises money to send girls who have been raped or abused on training courses where they learn to use computers, start their own businesses — and bake cupcakes.
“These girls then go into primary schools in townships where every child gets a cupcake and a candle,” Madurai said, adding that children in rural areas were often not registered when they were born.
Dicks, 26, from Cape Town, is co-leader of Innovate South Africa, which runs an innovation challenge that asks high school pupils to identify a problem in their community and propose a solution to it. She also launched Code for Cape Town, which introduces high-school girls to web-building and problem solving.
Bele, 26, a teacher at Cape Town High School, nominated herself after reading about the awards on social media.
During her training to become a teacher, Bele set up a programme called Mentor Me to Success, which provides one-on-one support for school pupils, especially girls, and assists with university applications and accessing funds.