Speaking notes by Honourable Buti Manamela, Deputy Minister in the Presidency on the occasion of the Youth Debate, National Assembly, Parliament
Every year we commemorate the radical and selfless actions that were undertaken by the youth of June 16, 1976. This is a stark reminder of the innate power that young people have to change the world. The power to confront the circumstances that keeps them shackled in chains denying them their freedom and to celebrate the role that they played in awakening the struggle against apartheid.
This year is no different. The youth are moving South Africa Forward!
We do this because our history and our young people matter in making us realize the potential that our country possesses to be a great and united nation. A nation that will never repeat the ugliness of the apartheid system for which the world knew .
The commemoration of June 16, led by young giants such as Tsietsi Mashinini, Khotso Seatlholo, Murphy Morobe , Seth Mazibuko, Billy Masetlha, Super Moloi, Daniel Montsitsi, Sibongile Mthembu Mkhabela, Paul Langa and Hector Pieterson together with many others should forever remain a motivation to thousands of young people that they hold their destiny in their own hands and no one will liberate them.
Their efforts have paid off by the election of a democratic government that cares for its youth and have placed them at the centre of its development agenda.
Despite the daily negative messaging, one cannot refute the evidence that the life of a young person born 21 years ago, in 1994, is better off than those who were born before.
Unlike their parents, they are not required to carry passes around, they are not forced to learn sub-standard education in a language imposed on them. In fact, they are the recipients of a decent meal in school, they have the prospects of going to a TVET college or university fully funded by the state. They will not be forced to leave certain areas at certain times through influx control. In fact, theoretically, they have an equal chance to make it in life.
As the ANC we do not regard these young people as being born free because the shackles that bound their parents are still imprinted in their life and will take generations and a concerted effort to change.
This administration has taken the needs, interests and aspirations of young people to heart. President Jacob Zuma has placed the task of youth development in his office and has made it the responsibility of each and every national government department, provincial and local departments and all state agencies to put youth development at the centre of their work.
The poverty of their parents, the income inequalities of their South Africa, unemployment and want would remain a transitory measure as they battle forward to change their circumstances.
Last year, when we commenced with the consultations that led to the National Youth Policy 2020, a young girl from Diepsloot Secondary School shouted from the back of the hall protesting against the economization of the challenges of young people.
She protested that not all young people aspire to be all these fancy things that our leaders have been talking about. She declared that all what teenagers her age want to do is play.
By playing, she implied that she wants to be a musician, an artist or a sporting athlete. She wants to have the freedom to play netball or chess in a safe environment where she would not be a potential victim of rape or be induced into the life of drugs and alcohol.
By playing she meant that she wants to be given the opportunity and facilities for recreation so that she does not become another statistic amongst the millions infected by HIV/AIDS or be pregnant at an early age and dependent on some sugar daddy.
We want to play, she declared. And by this she saw herself in a classroom having equal resources with any other young person in the country irrespective of their colour or gender and being able to succeed without objective conditions limiting her own development.
When she said she wants to play, she meant that she wants access to books through a library so that she can read and open up a new world full of possibilities as seen through the eyes of the writer. Or to flip through the books of history and learn about Mandela, Ghandi, Verwoerd and Suzman and the role that they have played to make this country, better or worse.
Playing to her could have also meant that she wants equal opportunities to acquire skills and knowledge about a trade, or becoming an entrepreneur so that she breaks the cycle of poverty that binds her to her family or her community. She wanted access to information and technology that will allow her to socially interact with her peers, to understand their culture, their perspective, their language, their history, their food and wherever that they may be from and connect with them as human beings.
She probably saw herself as the future captain of Banyana Banyana or as a senior executive of a mining company that will contribute in building a prosperous society.
The freedom to play in the way that this Diepsloot girl dreamt of is the freedom that Hector Peterson and many others sacrificed or were denied. They had no other freedoms except the limited one's that were served on the platter of white minority rule. Hector and many others could not be Kwaito stars or score runs on the cricket field because the law would not permit them to do so.
Thus, the freedom we should think of for the youth of this country should be the freedom to play, to dream and to be able to pursue or realize those dreams irrespective of their colour or gender.
The main intention of the National Youth Policy 2020 is exactly that, to allow young people to be able to realize their potential by providing them with a hand-up, to eradicate the hurdles that were imposed by our history, and to use state power to develop their lives for the better.
But the Diepsloot girl also understood that this freedom to play came with enormous responsibilities, and that she could not waste her future overindulging in her rights without taking responsibility for her actions.
As those who were born in 1994 comprehend what it means to have access to education, they also understand that they have the responsibility to study hard and pass.
If they are given a study loan or a bursary, not only do they have a responsibility to work for their country, but also to contribute back into the National Student Financial Aid Scheme so that more students should have access to higher and further education.
Our rights as enshrined in the constitution to life, to health, to work, to do business, to an education, to sports and recreation and various other liberties comes with huge responsibilities.
These responsibilities includes making a contribution towards a united, non-sexist, non-racist and democratic society, a future South Africa were all live together with total disregard of our race or gender.
The Presidential Working Group on Youth represents the first giant step by the President to take further work that has been done for the last 21 years to change the quality of life of young people, and allow them to play.
This PWG, together with a task-team of 17 Deputy Ministers, will not only ensure that the National Youth Policy is implemented, but will also ensure that youth development becomes the business of everyone in government, civil society, business and in all our communities.
We have listened to young people through the consultative process of the NYP2020 who called upon government to accelerate action in terms of jobs, education, skills development, support for youth business and the fight against drugs and substance abuse.
Thus, the PWG have instructed us to accelerate the implementation of the Youth Employment Accord, and many other government policies in responding to the challenges facing young people.
In this regard, we will immediately target the finalisation of the National Youth Service Framework, and seek to recruit 1 million young people into a NYS within the next two years.
We will lobby for additional funding for youth businesses and co-operatives as an add-on to the R2.7bn allocated by the IDC and SEFA together with the NYDA.
We will work with business to ensure that more young people are exposed to Workplace Skills Programmes, Internships and also review the progress made through the Youth Employment Incentives.
We will work with young people to protect our communities, schools and universities and bring to book criminals who traffic drugs in these areas.
But in the overall, we will be mobilizing young people to get involved, take action and change South African for the better and not be passive bystanders waiting for things to happen for us.
We have also listened to them when they demanded change in the manner in which the NYDA operates, and provide services.
The new NYDA board has taken the services of the NYDA to young people by opening 240 local youth offices nationally which served 1.2 million young people, with the prospect of more offices being opened in this financial year. This is hope in action.
They have provided R29million in grant funding to more than 1043 young people, yielding 4 347 direct jobs. This is hope in action.
Through the Business Development Services Voucher programme, they have empowered and uplifted more than 62 000 young entrepreneurs in the last financial year, and have given career guidance to close to a million young people countrywide. This is hope in action.
Close to 4000 young people got a second chance last year after having failed their matric, went on to rewrite through an NYDA programme, and today their lives will be changed for the better. This is hope in action.
300 more are beneficiaries of the NYDA Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship, and many more will be covered through initiatiatives of partnering with the private sector. This is hope in action.
All of these will be expanded with the additional R37million that will be saved from the reorganization of the NYDA which will be implemented from the beginning of July.
The NYDA, indeed, remains a catalyst for youth development, and has restored hope through action in the lives of millions of young people.
Yes, there are challenges.
Yes, 1 in 3 young people are unemployed.
Yes, more than 2.5million young people are idling and not economically active.
Yes, teenage pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse statistics are scary.
Yes, more and more young people are trapped in the poverty cycle that was given birth by long years of the ugliness of apartheid.
These are the issues that give us sleepless nights and motivates us to do more, together with the youth of our country.
We are inspired that, although some may prophesy gloom and doom at the end of the horizon, we see hope in the eyes of the youth and that at the end, they too, will be able to play in the sunshine, just as the girl from Diepsloot dreams to.
Thank you.
