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Yolanda Dyantyi

Advocating for her right to education

Yolanda Dyantyi in Johannesburg © Thom Pierce 2023

Yolanda’s story is quite well known. Whilst a second-year student she led the #RUReferenceList anti-rape culture protests at Rhodes University; and a year later was excluded from higher education for life. She did not get to finish her course, did not receive a degree and would not have been accepted into any other institute of higher education. 


In 2022 her right to higher education was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeals judgement when it set aside all the alleged charges instituted against her. 


They tried to silence her, tried to punish her for speaking out, yet she just got louder.


“I aim to inspire young women with my journey, and to encourage passionate young people to find their voices…I want my story to inspire change. I want my story to contribute towards birthing new and positive realities for Africans.”


Yolanda gets her fire from her Grandmother, the woman who raised her whilst working as a domestic worker in a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg.  As a strong leader and preacher in the Zionist Church, she taught Yolanda to stand up for herself and gave her the confidence to know that she would always be supported. From a young age, Yolanda learned to speak up against injustice.   


Cut to 2016, and there she is fighting on the front lines at her own place of learning. As a survivor of rape at the university the previous year, she did what was in her blood and she led from the front, demanding accountability and justice for the numerous young women who had been victims of sexual assault at the University.  


“I should have been focusing on studying but I was leading a political struggle - I can’t separate the two, we weren’t safe.”


From this experience, she realised the power of her story and the part that she has played in the important contribution of women activists in South Africa. And so she keeps up the fight, day in and day out, finding ways to disrupt the patriarchal violence that has been deeply sewn into the fabric of our society. 


She is currently an award-winning social entrepreneur building an African Feminist digital archive memorialising African women's work and their contribution towards social justice. 


Watch Yolanda’s Journey To Justice and follow her Instagram @archiveamabali_wethu


 

CREATED FOR positive activism © 2025

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