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Six months after joining the Eco Furniture project - a job creation initiative that produces eco-friendly furniture - Gugu Mbhele’s life has changed for the better.

As South Africa celebrates 20 Years of Freedom, the questions on everyone’s lips are what is freedom, what does it mean to be free and how have people benefited from freedom?

Vuk’uzenzele posed these questions to a range of South Africans.

Dumisani Boraga (MAFIKENG)

When it comes to freedom and democracy, no country has a better story to tell than South Africa.

South Africa is a success story and a better place to live in compared to 20 years ago.

The safety of all South Africans is one of government’s priorities. The South African Police Service (SAPS) is among those tasked with ensuring this safety and has made great strides in fighting crime over the past 20 years.

Although often criticised for not doing enough, many South Africans, like some of those who spoke to Vuk’uzenzele, are proud of our men and women in blue.

Increasing the police budget, launching a Police Academy and intensifying crime-fighting efforts are some of government’s efforts to strengthen police.

South Africans can now take full advantage of the country’s justice system thanks to government’s initiatives to make legal services more freely available.

When Thuthiwe Rwexu appeared on a television programme that highlighted the plight of Second Creek residents, it was not only her living conditions that sent shivers down the spines of viewers.

When Samuel Kubayi arrived in Johannesburg in 1996 from the Eastern Cape, his goal was to find a job in the City of Gold and build a proper home for his family.

Under the apartheid regime the lives of black communities across the country were disrupted. Many were forcibly removed from their ancestral land, the only home they knew, as a result of apartheid laws.

According to the Twenty Year Review, in 1994 most agricultural land (83 per cent) was owned by whites and only 17 per cent of the land was available for black people in the former homelands.

Over the past two decades, thousands of families who were forced to give up their land under apartheid have been compensated or handed back land.