Mikayla Boorany does not take for granted that she is a privileged young people in South African society.
Instead, the Parktown High School for Girls learner wants to do her bit to help improve other people’s lives too.
The Joburg-based matriculant said she was privileged and grateful to have had the resources to attend one of the best government schools in the province and described her experience as daunting and tough.
“I think that navigating through a post-colonial school as a person of colour is still extremely difficult. Although some work is being done, South Africa’s post-colonial learning institutions still have a lot of work to do and a long way to go. Parktown Girls is still a school in which the headmistress and her deputies are all white women. This can sometimes be difficult to reconcile for people of colour in the school, due to the lack of diversity in leadership,” Boorany said.
She said there were many challenges and difficulties that her peers and herself had to overcome, usually alone, and sometimes with the sup-
port of only history educator Charissa Shay.
“Miss Shay was one of the few educators that made my high school experience bearable. Throughout my high school career, she dedicated her career to relentlessly working towards ensuring Parktown Girls became a safer space for all its students.”
In an effort to deal with the spaces she finds herself in, Mikayla started the Conscious Campaign with her peers, Sihle Mazibu, Chloé Maluleke, Zayyana Amod and Shay at the end of Grade 10.
The campaign was an initiative for learners to interact and engage with social justice through discourse and the arts. It involved weekly meetings and various events throughout the year.
“We had discussions which involved sometimes ‘controversial’ topics. We focused on gender, race, class and identity politics but we constantly maintained our stance on the importance of inter-sectional activism, so we branched into many different topics like apartheid in Palestine and even climate change,” Mikayla said.
The objective of the campaign was to provide a platform where issues close to the hearts of South African learners could be critically engaged with in a safe and non-threatening zone, ensuring tolerance and intellectual growth. Her future plans include advocating for reproductive health and rights of women.
“I am passionate about liberation medicine - using health as a tool to fight for social justice.
“It is likely that I will be pursuing a degree in physiotherapy next year; however, my ultimate goal is to one day study medicine, God willing,” she said.
“Having access to a quality education in this country is unfortunately generally dependent on your socio-economic status.. It is so necessary to develop and remember your reasoning behind wanting to be academically successful. Remember your privilege and use your privilege to better the state of our society.”