The specific issues they have to tackle may differ quite substantially, but make no mistake, the young people of South Africa still want to fight injustice on many levels and ensure an equitable society for all who live in it.

The date 16 June 1976 will forever be etched into the memory of South Africa. Though I was not there to witness it myself, I remember my parents, part of the uprising generation, describe it as the day that the roads of Soweto reverberated with the footsteps of thousands of brave young students who had had enough of the oppressive apartheid regime and took to the streets in opposition to an unfair educational system and the government's plans to impose Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in black schools.

That bravery and peaceful defiance were met with tear gas, bullets and bloodshed, sparking a nationwide uprising against the apartheid regime. What happened on 16 June and in the days that followed forever altered the course of the struggle against apartheid and cemented that generation as change agents in South Africa's sociopolitical landscape.

Forty-eight years later, the pressure to live up to the legacy of the young people of 1976 has only grown. We young people have been inundated with messages that the youth of today pale in comparison to the youth of 1976, who laid their lives on the line to fight for what they believed. We are told that...