Khotso Dineo (Kay-Dee) Mashile was born in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga. She grew up in many parts of the country, to which she attributes her cultural diversity. Her most steady home is a beautiful village called Nkwinyamahembhe (Lillydale).
Kay-Dee’s graduated with a Bachelor in Social Work (with honours) and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Africa Studies. She is also the Founder and Managing Director of Perfect Love Publications and Perfect Love Youth. Perfect Love Publications is an all black female owned and run publishing company which aims to equip young emerging authors with writing related skills and knowledge so that they can become competent authors. The Perfect Love Publications team mentors each author and cater to their specific needs at prices that are tailored for their specific target market.
At Perfect Love Youth, literacy is used as a tool to address the socio-economic challenges faced by rural and township communities. Kay-Dee and her team have just finished the first national poetry competition for schools in these areas and will publish the anthology of the winning poems by September 2018. The mentorship programme allows for unemployed youths to reach out to high school learners within their community. And some of the profits made from the book sales will fund the education and business ventures of both the mentors and the winners.
Kay-Dee is an activist at heart and is currently working in collaboration with Impact Hub SA on an HIV Campaign that aims to reeducate the youth and raise awareness in forgotten spaces such as The Church and other youth organisations. In between juggling school, work and trying to change the world, Kay-Dee is a singer and a spoken word artist. Her campaigns and projects always incorporate a lot of artistic elements as well as social media activations.
Kay-Dee is passionate about the youth of Africa. She believes that it is up to young African people to change their narrative and rewrite one that both the current and future generations will be proud to read.
