"take a seat, look at how far you've come, congratulate yourself and work on bettering yourself in whatever skills you have because we will never get a time like this ever again"

"My activism located me at a time when I couldn’t reject it due to the conditions"

"I want a young black girl child to understand her capabilities are not limited by her physical appearance but are enhanced when she is confident and owning who she is"

"When we demand change for the future that we’re going to inherit, we’re told we’re overly radical or that people at the [decision-making] table speak for us"

"Fear, anxiety, self doubt is normal. But at the end of the day, bravery is doing it regardless."

"You don't have to be a famous person person to bring about change in the world or in a community"

"Asking me to change my hair is like asking me to erase my blackness"

"we spoke up about something we were always taught to be silent about"

"I work in these spaces where you're constantly speaking up and you’re always pouring into other people's cups and your cup is hardly poured into"

"You can't separate any expression of Black hair from Black identity, especially because for Black people it's more than just hair"

"I’ve always kept that close to my heart, understanding that everything I do is not just for me but for those who came before me who walked so I could fly, who did not have the means to do what I do but ensured that I would"

"The most urgent thing that needs to happen to ensure that education is used as a tool to change the world is firstly, it needs to be accessible"

"I believe no young person should abandon their childhood to fight struggles that should have been fought decades ago"

"There is always that question: is this who we are as a society? How do we question our value system and what that means for the society we are raising"

"As much as my writing is diverse and sometimes straddles different categories, it’s clear that placing any of my books under a section marked “chick lit” is patently sexist"

"Living in South Africa, crime is something that is always with us, in our conscious and subconscious minds"

"I still lived in a world where every last bit of your life was determined by your race: what kind of opportunities you're going to be exposed to, the kind of school you'll go to, the environment you’ll live in. My entire world still was determined on the basis of race."

"Flashiness is off-putting, but it is something that we live with amongst the black middle class – with people who made a lot of money very quickly. I understand the temptation to say, I started at the bottom, now I’m here, and I want everyone to see. But at the same time, it just puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on people. That’s why, right now, mental health issues are such a big thing in society – it’s not the only reason, but it is one of them"

"It was tricky trying to find the balance between the producers’ instincts on what works on screen versus the creator’s instincts for what their character would or would not do in a certain situation"

"I chose to speak up because I felt it was an injustice of its own for me to see the reality of the institution and still choose to be silent."

"I realised that you have one of two choices: either you try to speak up and see what the effects of speaking up will be, or you die in silence over the silent war you constantly find yourself in"

"I chose to be an activist because I don't want a generation of young South Africans to still be having the same kind of conversations about systemic and institutional racism 30 years from now"

"I was 13, 14 years old, a child basically, [and] I was receiving death threats from old white adults"

"Black children see the diversity of the world around them and understand that just because someone doesn't look like them, that doesn't make them inferior"

"Too many young people are over-mentored and underfunded"

"Before 2016, i was already someone shaped by my experiences and beliefs, preparing me for the moment I finally stood up for myself"

"Bravery can co-exist with fear"

"The generation of Nelson Mandela brought political emancipation. But political emancipation doesn't exist without economic and mental emancipation"

"As much as the apartheid regime has no longer been constitutionalised, racism hasn't disappeared"

"The hair policy is a symptom of a greater diagnosis of institutionalised racism and systemic racism"

"The economy in South Africa is still divided, and wealth and poverty have opposite faces"

"A huge part of my activism has been to empower people to use their own voices to change the world and their circumstances"

"I first-hand got to see racism from my identity not being welcomed or understood"

"The world is changed by ordinary people that have the audacity to use their voices for change"

"I strongly believe that seeing yourself represented in the pages of books empowers one’s existence"

"I've realised that a big part of fighting racism deals with the mind — and the only way to unlock and liberate the mind is through access to knowledge"

"Laws can change, but people still have to change"

"the oppressed — Black people, people of colour — need to get to a point where they take themselves out of their own mental prison and liberate their minds"

"I believe that books play a big role, especially books by Africans, in seeing representation, seeing yourself being written up in a positive light, seeing your existence reflected in the pages of literature"

"So, in my journey of finding my voice to speak up against racism I began to decolonise my mind, unlocking the shackles, and unlearning the belief of looking at Eurocentric beauty as the standard for beauty"

"I then began to see my hair as not just hair but a central core element of identity"

"I hope that when children pick up my book it empowers them to feel proud of their existence and their identity and it ultimately empowers their existence and enables them to proudly be themselves"

"Your greatest power lies in proudly being yourself and that awakens a new level of consciousness"

"If all African writers only wrote about race (for instance), which is a major factor that contributes to the inequalities faced by black people across the world, we would miss the opportunity to bring out the other human aspects of our people"

"The fight against racism is a fight for the betterment of all of humanity, because it determines how we will live amongst each other, and how resources will be shared"

"The minute we lose the ability to see the humanity in the next person that looks different from you—that's when racism is planted into the fibre of society, and that's when we desensitize ourselves to the importance of existing in a just and equitable world with people that look different from us"

"South Africa is a perfect example of how destructive reform is as opposed to abolition"

"I hope that my activism leaves a trail of impact by Empowering more people to feel empowered to see the power in their voices and use their voices to effect change around them"

"Young people make up a majority of the global population, but they are still not included in building a world that they are going to inherit"