Muzi Nduku

Youth in Education

Nominee's Province:
Eastern Cape

Age:
30

Project Name/Description:

More info:

Our backgrounds make or break us and for Muzi Nduku, it was the former. The Mbizana-born looked at his surroundings, where many young people struggled to find proper employment due to a lack of job opportunities and the necessary skills set, and it sparked his love for his community. He realised that it was the very dire situation that led to the youth engaging in criminal activities, dropping out of school and being trapped in teenage pregnancy. As an escape from the trap, Nduku indulged in different activities that allowed him to develop a wide range of skills. He later decided to enlist his peers to start a soccer club for men and women. He developed a hunger for more and subsequently added cycling, poetry, performing arts, and awareness campaigns against drugs, GBV, teenage pregnancy and crime. The more the optimist did, the more he wanted to do. He then joined the Department of Social Development’s Soul Buddies club as a peer educator. The Department of Education then hired him to work as a peer-group facilitator in schools. He was later rehired by social development as part of the Teenagers against Drug Abuse programme. The 30-year-old was also employed by the Nelson Mandela Institute for Education and Rural Development, based at Fort Hare University. This collaboration resulted in the publication of two poetry books written by students. “As a creative-arts instructor,” Nduku shares, “I adopted two schools and began teaching young students traditional dance, poetry, and drama.”