Ntuli, who doubles as GWC’s founder and chief executive, held the event at the Varsity College campus in Durban North, where a large number in the audience was of university age.

She said a shrinking youth voter base has necessitated the initiative.

According to an Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) report, titled “Democracy’s Dividend Results from the Voter Participation Survey 2021”, the “Born Free” generation – those born post-1990 – were “increasingly abandoning traditional conventional political activities”.

The report stated this idea had become more salient after the low-voter turnout in this group during the 2021 local government elections.

“Today we are targeting young people because we know the discussion that young people are the most under-registered demographic in our country,” Ntuli said.

“The only way we’re going to get change is by making sure that we have a voters’ roll that is inclusive of everyone that is eligible to vote. At the moment, our voters’ roll is emigrating and dying out.

“We need young people to have their votes heard. We need to be able to send a message to everybody, particularly political parties and political players, that they must do what people are asking for, and they must lsiten to their needs.”

Ntuli, who launched the GWC as a non-profit in April, added it was important to get youngsters registered by the drives.

She said this was the first leg of a tour across KwaZulu-Natal.

The IEC’s Mthokozisi Madlangalala said: “Our statistics show that young people don’t participate much [in elections]. Our registration statistics, especially ages between 16 and 24, are very low.”

“We have a high number of young people that need to participate and register to vote,” he added.

Madlangalala heaped praises on the GWC for assisting with the registration process.

The drive is not only about registering the youth to vote as the organisation also handed civic education material to them.

“It’s important that we show the rest of the country as we go around this year, showing what we’re going to be doing, and for us it is important that we get as many people as possible on the voters’ roll because that’s the only way we’re going to change our country and our democracy,” Ntuli told the crowd.

“Importantly, this is about our future as young people as for a long time we left our democracy in the hands of politicians. It’s time for us to get it back.”