Sol Plaatje University’s Department of Heritage Studies, within the School of Humanities, is hosting a June 16 commemoration public lecture titled ‘The bittersweet fruits of the June 1976 youth uprising’ by Ms Busisiwe Totsie Memela-Khambula.
Ms Memela-Khambula worked in the underground movement for almost three decades in the struggle against apartheid in different roles.
Born in the dusty township of Alexander in Johannesburg, Ms Memela-Khambula was a daughter of a clerk and domestic worker. Due to the forced removals under the apartheid rule, the family was forced to settle in Diepkloof, Soweto where she spent most of her childhood.
As a key speaker, Ms Memela-Khambula will illuminate the heavy hand of the apartheid regime that relegated African people to a serf status through inferior education which was further reduced in 1976 by the enforcement of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.
Ms Memela-Khambula was actively involved in the Soweto uprising which led her to being appointed as the Youth Uprising’s Student Representative Council for her school, Diepkloof Junior Secondary School situated in Soweto.
From a young age she knew that the fight for a better education which started with the Soweto uprising was not over and demanded a personal sacrifice.
This led her to leave South Africa for Swaziland where she completed her basic education and enrolled for graduate studies at the University of Swaziland. Simultaneously, she was receiving training in military intelligence as a member of the military wing of the African National Congress’ (ANC) Umkhonto Wesizwe. After completing her degree, she received further military training in Cuba.
She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of SASSA (South African Social Security Agency) and has over 26 years’ operations and management experience in the banking, financial services, non-profit and postal services sectors.
Ms Memela-Khambula’s life story is one that displays triumph of the human spirit over adversity and weaves in with the struggle and the thorny path that South Africa had to walk until 1994, and still continues to walk today.
The online lecture will take place as follows:
Date: 16 June 2020
Time: 14:30
Venue: MS Teams (Click here to join the MS Teams Platform to access the online lecture)
