Thandanani Ndlovu is a young man who typifies the contribution youth can make to their own self-determination and the development of other youth, if given the opportunity. Growing up in extreme poverty, he lived with his mother and 12 siblings. His unemployed father had 26 children, only 5 o f them with his mother. His absent father and older siblings, who took drugs and dropped out of school, were role models he rejected from an early age. In his last year of primary school he took odd jobs to pay his own school fees. He was fortunate to be sponsored by a community member during high school, and money from his jobs went towards the household upkeep. “My mother encouraged me to study so I could have a better life than her.”
 
After school he found entry level employment and began to think of saving to study to become an accountant. But Thandanani happened to be with the wrong person at the wrong time which led to him being lost in the justice system and ultimately imprisoned. Accompanying a friend who was to collect money from his employer, he witnessed his friend rob the man. In the ensuing panic and police chase, Thandanani was arrested. After seven months awaiting trial, and despite the man in question saying he was not part of the set up, Thandanani was sentenced to four years imprisonment. It was only two months after imprisonment that he was finally moved to juvenile section, as he had awaited trial with adults and served his sentence with adults, despite being a 17-year-old juvenile.
 
During his sentence, while his erstwhile ‘friend’ joined a gang, he co-ordinated church meetings for fellow offenders, commenting, “Maybe God sent me there to help other boys and to make an impact.” After two years, in January last year he received an early release and was sent to AmanzImtoti YMCA’s Sakhithemba Halfway House. He excelled in this rehabilitation and reintegration programme and was sponsored to go on an HIV/AIDS counselling course. Graduating quickly from the programme, he went back to work and spent his free time at Sakhithemba as a volunteer before being employed as a youth worker and outreach project co-ordinator in January this year.
 
In March this year Thandanani joined four other young people to give evidence at the 10th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and lobbied Council delegates on how youth justice systems around the world are failing young people, as part of the Youth Justice in Action campaign. “We lobbied for governments to use prison as a last resort for young people, to impose shorter sentences and to provide adequate rehabilitation services,” explained Thandanani, who shared his personal story at a side event. The YJIA representatives were instrumental in including a section on education, rehabilitation and reintegration in the resolution proposed by the Austrian government, and in getting 20 countries to co-sponsor the resolution.
 
“Young people can change the world if you give us a chance to talk and to do something. It is not about where we have come from – it’s about where we are going.”