Trevor Muzikayise Keath Cele

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I was born on 11 October 1967 at Katlehong township near the city of Germiston, a White’s only surbub. Katlehong was the product of Group Areas Act, most of its residents came from Kwa-Dukatholle, a radically mixed location. Today Katlehong is amongst the most violently apart township. Its death rate is reaching alarming scales everyday. Residents have left their homes, for safety.

Born in an ever expanding family in which relatives from all over the country will come squeeze themselves in and stay. Being three to my parents, we were all grown up by grandmother who assumed the title of being a mother, father and above all a bread-winner.

I attended local schools which were structured on a different language bases, meaning that those who spoke a certain African language were bound to attend a school that catered for such pupils, irrespective of the distance they had to travel to attend school. In 1986 I was due to complete my secondary education but could not do so because of unrests and class-boycotts. Finally in 1987 I managed to acquire the Senior Certificate with university exemption but could not proceed to a tertiary institution because of lack of financial assistance, until two years later. This was possible with the help of my widowed sister.

I was a chairperson of the debating society from 1985 to 1987 and had served in a number of community organizations. During all these years, I supplemented my home income by hawkering cosmetics to the public. It was a door-to-door salesmanship that I developed an interest in knowing people’s problems, seeking their originality, the inequality between the people of the Republic of South Africa. I started to ask myself questions, like why the rightful owners of this land were so oppressed and reduced to status of being beggars. Why education was not the same for all of us. Of course it was during this period that the youth assumed the position of leadership and of challenging the unjust system of government.

When I finally registered at the University of Durban-Westville, I co-founded the Pan-Africanist Student Organization of Azania (South Africa) which had as it major objectives, the total scraping of Bantu education, the making of education compulsory for everyone, the equal spending subsidy on education and above all the total seizure of state political power and establishment of a just democratic society through the guided youth. I am the member of the Student Representative Council’s Academic Support Project which aims at helping the local matriculants with their academic problems.

Being fortunate of majoring in political science and private law, I have managed to put my ideas of a future state, which will combine both justice and representation. Having survived poverty, hunger and injustices of the government. One is now hungry for peace amongst the oppressed masses. How then, do we ensure education of our youth if bursary agencies appear to be exclusively for a particular group with a particular political belief? It will be through educating our people, politically and otherwise, that we will achieve and manage to successfully bring social changes that we will satisfy, at least, the basic aspirations of the oppressed. This is the field, I will be most prepared to serve.

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