Happy birthday to the fabulous Sicelo Kula – who turned 25 this week!
We first met Sicelo in September 2013. He won a spot at a writing workshop we were hosting as part of a special project – Breaking Barriers, Transition Stories – run with sponsorship from the Harry Crossley Foundation. The project investigated the personal – and often challenging – experiences of first-year students as they transitioned from high school into tertiary study.
Sicelo was one of two students then selected to be mentored to write a short story for FunDza. Since then he’s become a big part of our lives: he’s written a number of other stories for FunDza (check out his profile for the links) and he also joined the team to write a weekly blog – What’s poppin’ eKasi – about topical issues affecting young people in South Africa.
He’s now fulfilling one of his dreams – to have a book published! Sicelo is busy completing the tenth book in the Harmony High series, due to be released early next year by our publishing partner, Cover2Cover Books.
Sicelo came into the office today to work on his book and we took the opportunity to celebrate his birthday. While he was treated to some cake, we were treated to him performing some of his poems.
We’re so grateful to know him and to have been blessed with his thought-provoking creative talent over the last two years.
Check out the following two videos showing Sicelo entertaining us with performances of his poetry.