Ayanda Kota

Ayanda Kota was born in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape in February 1976 – the year of the national youth insurrection that began in Soweto. He joined the Black Consciousness Movement at the age of 15 years. Militants in the movement made a serious study of works by revolutionary thinkers like Steven Biko, Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Mao Zedong. In 1990 he was elected as a Class Representative and in 1995 he was elected as the Azanian Student Movement Chairperson in Cape Town. In the same year he was arrested and detained in the Cape Town police station for his role in Employ Black Teachers Campaign. The following year he was elected as the Azanian Students Movement National Political Education Secretary in Kimberly. In 2001 he was re-elected to the position of Political Education Secretary at a meeting at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town. In 2003 he was elected as the Black Consciousness Youth of Azania National Secretary for Publicity and Information in Durban at a meeting at the Steve Biko campus of the Durban University of Technology.

In 2005 he formed the United Fighters Football Club in Cape Town. In 2007 he was elected a Shop Steward at Home Choice Catalogue Retail Company in Cape Town and subsequently dismissed for union activities.

In 2009 he founded the Unemployed People’s Movement in Grahamstown and was elected as the first chairperson. He kept this position until 2012 and, from 2010, he also held the elected position of President of the Makana Local Football Association. In 2010 he was arrested and subject to police assault while protesting outside parliament. The following year he was arrested for his role in a protest in Grahamstown. In early 2012 he was arrested on bogus theft charges and assaulted in the Grahamstown police station. In each case charges were dropped against him before the matters went to trial. In 2012 he resigned as the chairperson of the Unemployed People’s Movement but was elected as the movement’s spokesperson.

The Unemployed People’s Movement has members in various parts of the country and vibrant branches in Grahamstown and in Durban. It works closely with the grassroots movements that, like Abahlali baseMjondolo, are affiliated to the Poor People’s Alliance and it is also affiliated to the Democratic Left Front.

Ayanda has two lovely sons, Sibalwethu and Simamkele.