I have been in Somerset East for three weeks now and the thing that stands out most is that there is a problem with taking responsibility. And then I don’t mean the responsibility of who takes care of what, but the responsibility we have to ourselves. The first and most important thing which you need in order to achieve something in life, is to take good care of yourself. Everything you do has an effect on your environment and therefore the first priority lies at the outcome of your own actions. In order to develop your community you have to start with developing yourself. You can only control your own actions and if you accept this fact then you can start developing. If you have control over yourself and think about the consequences your actions can have you are building on a better society. Leading by example starts with knowing what you are doing and knowing what can happen while doing. If you choose to do something you must take responsibility over the consequences of that action. You can choose drinking tonight, but you have to bear in mind that you’ll probably not be able to play soccer the next day. This is often very difficult to accept. A friend I met here in Somerset for example gave birth to a beautiful son. The father of the son refuses to accept that it is his baby, which implies that the mother has to take care of him herself. The father thus clearly doesn’t take the responsibility of his actions and even blames the mother of the child for cheating. How can we all build on a community if we don’t want to take these responsibilities?

As I said before, the first challenge we all face is to achieve at the best of our capacity. You have the responsibility to yourself to use everything which lies within your reach and by using these opportunities you can start building on yourself. Look at the things you do have instead of the things you don’t and use them to the best of your knowledge. If you show the people in your environment that you can build a future with the same possibilities as them, others will follow your example. Look at the impact of your actions on your environment and be aware that you can make a difference. We all have different skills and therefore we have to exploit the skills we posses and work together with other people to achieve the bigger things in life. Start today with taking your responsibilities and forget about what happened in the past. You are living here and now and it is here that you have to start working on your future. Don’t ever forget that you are part of a bigger society, a bigger family, that also needs your attention and for which you are responsible. Because that is what we are, black, white or colored, we are one family and we must never forget that.