Youth volunteers complete building of community houses for destitute familes in EC
Youth volunteers will complete their community work of building houses for the destitute with a handover of houses they have built for the destitute families in the poverty stricken villages of Ntabankulu under Alfred Nzo District Municipality. The completed houses will be given to beneficiaries by MEC for Human Settlements Helen Sauls-August with both local and District Mayors.
This handover will be held as a launch of the part of the Mandela Day activities by the department.
Background
The department working closely with Ntabankulu Local Municipality identified unemployed youth to work as volunteers in a youth build training programme for a period of six weeks. The department collaborated with the National Homebuilders Registration Council on this programme to train young people on technical skills and Ntabankulu Local Municipality to identify the young people within the various wards of the local municipality.
With high levels of unemployment having increased in the Province, the Youth Brigade Programme provides training opportunities and much needed skills to unemployed youth across the Province. According to the labour force survey issued by Statistics SA this month, the province saw an increase of 3.8 percentage points in unemployment, going from 28.4 % in the fourth quarter of last year (October-December) to 32.2% in the first quarter of the year (January-March).
The Human Settlements Youth Brigade Programme is a departmental response to the call of upscaling government interventions for youth development. Youth participate in this programme either as professionals, labours, entrepreneurs or beneficiaries. The Youth gain Artisan Development, Employment & Enterprise Development and Professional Development.Over 200 young people have been trained since the programme started and have gone to receive further technical training through training and vocational institutions.
Whilst the programme is intended for capacitation of unemployed youth, it also assists in addressing the housing backlog in the Province. According statistics report of 2016, there are 1 773 255 households in the province. Of these, 471 698 households are situated in rural areas. The department is prioritising human settlements development in rural areas with half of the total number of developments being in the rural areas.
The percentage of households living in traditional dwellings has also declined sharply from 18.3% in 1996 to 7% in 2016. The Eastern Cape Province distribution of households whose main dwelling is a government subsidized dwelling increased to 386 802 in 2016.Those living in informal dwellings have decreased slightly from 16.2% in 1996 to 13% in 2016.
The house handover will be held as follows:
Date : 7 July 2017
Venue : Phungulelweni village (Ntabankulu)
Enquiries:
Lwandile Sicwetsha( Mr)
Director: Corporate Communications
Tel: 043 711 9679
Email: lwandiles@ecdhs.gov.za
