Thandokuhle Sibanda is an author and poet activist who uses her poetry to address social and psychological issues affecting communities and to create awareness of issues around communities.
She seeks to change people’s perceptions or make them aware of certain things around them.
She is the author of an anthology titled One Day to the Next which consists of 42 poems. She put together the work in a bid to inspire and address societal issues. She also works on a number of projects aimed at empowering women at different levels.
Through the Shield Initiative, she contributes towards engagements toto empower, equip, protect and counsel women who. The project aims to build capacity, enable skills development and innovation; and provides entrepreneurship classes that cover. basic accounting skills, marketing skills and manufacturing skills; with the aim of ensuring that women become self-sufficient.
She is involved in The heart of the school project, which is a movement that seeks to afford an African child a better learning experience through the improvement of the conditions of the school library.
The project has been effective in developing a reading culture and providing children access to the internet and books that are relevant to their curriculum and syllabus, thereby improving the quality of education. The ultimate goal is to ensure that schools in Zimbabwe, particularly in the high-density suburbs and remote areas, produce students of a higher scope of knowledge.
She contributes to the YoungVoices podcast, that seeks to create a safe space for youth conversations. The platform provides a safe space for youth to get answers to the questions they would ordinarily not be able to get answers for. YoungVoices raises awareness on issues that affect young people and drives pertinent conversation that celebrate young people young people.
A number of challenging experiences Thandokuhle experienced in high school and the difficulties she encountered as a girl child motivated her to get involved in these programmes. Her aim is to ensure that other young people do not have to face the same challenges that she experienced or the obstacles that slowed down her growth and development.
Her vision is to contribute towards ensuring that the girl child stays in school and to refurbish at least five libraries in Bulawayo, to create spaces that reignite interest in reading to create a knowledge society.
She says, the future is now, so instead of the youth thinking about themselves as the future they must think of themselves as the leaders now, and begin to lead and contribute towards transforming our communities – and this requires people of action.
