Why three young men from Kutloanong Ward 18 are walking to Upington

In 2021, 537,687 young people passed matric in South Africa. They celebrated, they thought a door had opened. Among them were Tsunke, Raymond and Thabo, three young men from Kutloanong Ward 18 who matriculated at Reabetswe Secondary School.

That was 2021 and it is 2026 now and they are still home, five years later. No job, no learnership, no NSFAS. They applied at Shoprite, at the mines, at the municipality, everywhere, and got nothing. They are just the surface of what is happening in this country.

Last year more than 656,000 learners passed matric, more than ever before. And this year, 2026, 989,141 candidates registered to write matric, almost a million children hoping to pass. Almost a million more about to enter the same queue. Where will they go?

They are not walking for sympathy. They are walking to be heard.

In 2024 one of their friends broke down and said "I am useless" and he almost took his own life and that moment broke them too. That is when Tsunke, Raymond and Thabo sat down and said "we can't just sit and wait for government, our legs still work."

So they decided to walk 600 kilometres. "If we can walk 600 kilometers we can show every unemployed youth in Welkom that you are not useless, your pain can become a road." That is what they told me.

"We have no jobs but we have legs. We have no money but we have each other." They call themselves Team S.N.O.P, led by Tsunke, and they have been home for five years since matric, and this walk is how they are turning five years of waiting into a road.

They will walk from the 1st to the 28th of February 2027, 28 days. They will start at Goldfields Mall in Welkom because that is where all the youth hang looking for jobs. From there they will walk to Boshof, to Kimberley, to Upington, 20 to 25 kilometres per day, pushing three bicycles with food, water and power banks.

They will sleep in churches, community halls, or in yards where people allow them to pitch a tent. Every kilometre they will go live on TikTok and Facebook and they will also stop at schools in small towns to talk to matric learners and tell them "don't wait five years like us, start something now."

Awareness for them is not just walking, they want three things. They want to be seen, they want Welkom businesses to see them, maybe someone will give them jobs after Upington or give other youth jobs.

They want to collect stories, they will carry a South African flag and in every town they will ask unemployed youth to write their name and dream on that flag, so that flag will arrive in Upington full of dreams. And they want to prove they exist, they said "we are not statistics in a report, we are walking 600 kilometers to be seen."

And can you join them, like Forrest Gump? Yes, they love that idea. Tsunke, Raymond and Thabo said "if you are in Boshof join us for one kilometre, if you are in Kimberley join us for five kilometres," they want gogos, school kids, unemployed youth to walk with them even for ten minutes.

At the end they won't be three anymore, they will be hundreds. That is the angle, from three to many, from Kutloanong to Upington, they want to collect people, not just kilometres.

Something has to give in South Africa, and maybe it starts when Tsunke, Raymond and Thabo decide to put foot. They told me they are ready for "600KM or 1000KM." I will be pitching this story to my editor next week but for now I am blogging it so it doesn't slip. Please share it and pray for Team S.N.O.P.