Charlize was in SA with some Hollywood friends, including Trevor Noah to visit a few places with her outreach project. One of them was Salesian Life Choices.

Remember when we posted that Charlize Theron, Trevor Noah and Chelsea Handler were popping up at schools around South Africa? Well this is actually what they were up to and it is pretty cool!

They were with ‘The Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project’ (CTAOP). While here they teamed up with the non-profit Salesian Life Choices. The group included Charlize, Trevor, Chelsea Handler and Mary McCormack, as well as Charlize’s mom Gerda.

Charlize has been funding the NPO for a few years. They do work within the Cape Flats to help guide the vulnerable youth. Charlize shared some advise with the teens, she believes that South Africans are resilient,

“That is an advantage we should use. I’m proud of that. As soon as I moved to America, I realised an advantage I had. I have a thick skin and I can bounce back.”

“The dream of what you want to achieve is within you and you have to go after it. Dream it, wake up and go after it. And be grateful for the people that help you along the way.”

“My love for the people of this country is immense. I don’t see any reason why the people of South Africa should be suffering unnecessarily in the way that they are, especially when it comes to the AIDS epidemic.”

“Your lives aren’t easy. Our circumstances may differ, but as South Africans, we know where the struggle is. My own struggle made me aware of the struggles we all face. Own your own truth. I used that in a way to drive myself, to push myself. That was my engine.” – Charlize Theron

Trevor Noah also had some wise words of wisdom for the teens, encouraging them to see value in themselves.

“I genuinely don’t have the confidence you think I have. What I do have is confidence in my work ethic. When I get onto the stage I’m terrified and all I can do is rely on the work I’ve put into myself before I got onto the stage. That is when work pays off.”

“When I started travelling, I learnt South Africans, for the most part, are part of a nation that has grown up with a low self-esteem. We’ve been told for a long time that we cannot do and achieve certain things and we sometimes revel in that too much. What we need to do is value ourselves and what we have. We have to be in a place where we don’t wait for someone from the outside to tell us what is good, we have to make it good ourselves.”

Trevor told the teens that they should be proud of the success they achieve, he credits the success he had within his community to what pushed him to an international level.

“Because it starts from there – at home. People often think they have to leave the township to become successful. I say why not bring the success to the township? Start drawing from the inside. Take what you have, find the value in it, encourage other South Africans to see the value in it as well. If we keep on doing that, we can create in a microcosm of something amazing that can change the world.”