Programme director, MEC Joyce Mashamba,
Speaker of the Capricorn District Municipality, Mme Maria Lekganyane,
Managers and senior managers in the Office of the Premier,
SABC Regional Manager,
Miss Limpopo and Miss Limpopo teen,
Our girls and boy children,
Ladies and gentlemen:
Good afternoon!
Today we meet in a tripartite programme which includes; the annual Take a Girl Child to Work campaign, the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign, which is our collective response to the senseless abduction of the school girls in Nigerian by the Boko Haram group.
At the same time, we are gathered here to mark the official launch of our Youth Month.
As you would know, this year marks the 12th anniversary of the Take a Girl Child to Work Campaign. The theme of this year’s campaign is “Dream, Believe, and Achieve”. This theme aims to remind girl learners that they have the power to make their greatest dreams come true by believing in themselves.
The central message is to encourage you as young girls and boys to remember that you can inspire, influence and lead others to greatness. As a government we have embraced this annual campaign because we are committed to unleashing the full potential of our young boys and girls.
All of you are born with a God-given potential to inspire, influence and to become the greatest you can be. This potential, however, needs to be nourished for it to be fully realised. Potential is nothing without guidance and hard work.
It is for this reason that as government we support initiatives such as the Take a Girl Child to Work Campaign and all other initiatives which are aimed at nurturing the potential of our young people.
Potential is the most powerful thing if guided and natured; but without proper guidance even the greatest potential can come to a complete nothing. It is true what they say; that the best songs have never been sung, the most inspirational books have never been written and that the best business plans have never saw the light of the day.
The people who could have sung those songs, written those books or implemented those business ideas either lacked the discipline of hard work or did not have enough support to realise their dreams. They took with them such powerful potential and dreams to their graves.
That is way some say; the richest place on the planet is our grave yards. It is for this reason that we are here to guide you; to ensure that your God-given potential blossoms even beyond your own imaginations.
Dr Myles Munroe, a renowned bestselling author and a lecturer likens potential to a seed. He says just one seed has potential to blossom in to a bush of thousand trees. Correctly, he says, for this to happen such a seed need to fall on a fertile soil.
If the seed does not fall on a fertile soil it will lose all potential to become a bush of thousand trees and simply die without even producing a single tree. In your case, a fertile soil is the supporting environment that we put in place as government, parents and corporate entities.
Today all what you want to enter and study at the best University in the country is not a rich family background or genius abilities, just hard work. Hard work alone is the fertile soil that is required to grow the seed of your potential and unlock all doors for you.
You may come from a very wealthy family, but without good marks you won’t be admitted at any University. On the other hand, a child of a pensioner, who has accepted the worth of hard work, will have access to the best university in the country, at times the government will even provide such a child with an opportunity to study overseas.
My dear young boys and girls, if a seed does not fall on a fertile soil, it is doomed to death, with all its potential, nothing will ever come of it. If you do not make enough time for your books, you must know that you are throwing the rich seed of your potential on to the fire.
If you do not listen to the advices of your parents and teachers, you must know that you are destroying your God-given potential. If you start some relationships before you complete your studies, you must know that you are dancing on top of the seed of your potential and it will be destroyed.
There are three things you can do to enhance your potential; hard work, hard work and hard work. Of course this must be supplemented by discipline.
Programme director,
I am confident that the future of our province and the country is safe in the hands of these beautiful young boys and girls. In their eyes I see determination, and a passionate resolve to succeed.
For our part as government we can promise them support and guidance throughout their journeys to realise their dreams. I am sure that by now you are aware that our various government departments have bursaries for those who are academically deserving and financially needy. We are looking forward to offering these bursaries to you.
I can also assure you that once you have completed your studies you will have limitless career opportunities, both in government and in the private sector. You would know that as government we employ Engineers, Doctors, Teachers, Lawyers, HR Practitioners, Accountants, Auditors and many other professionals.
These opportunities are only be available to you on condition that you complete your studies. You are a generation that must make education fashionable.
Compete about good marks and not about fashion labels. Spend more time on your books; and not on whatsapp, mixit and Facebook.
Programme director,
While we are here, enjoying the beauty of this day with these beautiful children of ours, hundreds of parents in Nigeria are nursing unbearable pain resulting from the abduction of their girl children from a boarding school by Boko Haram.
As South African we join in the call for the immediate and safe return of the girls. Our start-off point is that; no grievance, however legitimate it may be, justifies this senseless abduction of innocent and defenceless school kids.
We extent our heartfelt message of sympathy and support to the parents of the girls, the government and the people of Nigeria. Your pain is our pain. We too are burdened by the fear of imagining what the girls could be going through. I salute all people of Limpopo, including both our Miss Limpopo and Miss Limpopo teen for adding your voice of solidarity in this regard.
Programme director,
In a matter of two days, we will be entering the all-important month of June, our Youth Month.
You will recall that during this month, we commemorate the sacrifices made by the youth of 1976. This is the generation of young people who were willing to lay down their lives in a fight against the apartheid government.
This year we will be celebrating the Youth Month under the theme, ‘Youth moving South Africa Forward’. The essence of this theme is that the youth constitute a strongest link of our chain to pull our country out of the ashes of our past on to the future of prosperity and hope.
As a government, we have and we will continue to invest resources in the efforts to empower and develop our youth. We are guided in this regard by the timeless words of the former President of the ANC Mr OR Tambo when he said “a nation that does not take care of its youth has no future and does not deserve one”.
This year’s Youth Month Programme will include a series of Memorial Lectures about the significant of June 16 and most importantly about the lesson than must be learnt by the youth of today from the sacrifices of the 1976 generations.
Together, with both the Capricorn District Municipality and the Blouberg Local Municipality we will officially open the Youth Information and Resource Centre at Eldorado village. This centre is expected to go a long way in equipping our youth with knowledge and information required for both personal and societal development.
We will also launch the Provincial School Sports Tournament as a way of developing and exposing talents in our young people. We are confident to sustain such a tournament beyond this year for the long-term benefit of our youth.
We have also tailored programmes to engage young people in conflict with the law. The object of such engagements is to re-invite these young offenders back to the society as opposed to losing them to the dark world of criminal activities.
As I conclude Madam Chairperson I want to invite all young people in our province to seize the many opportunities availed by democracy. The struggle for economic emancipation requires your active participation.
Together we can move South Africa Forward,
I thank you!
