The Minister of Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, has urged young people to follow the example of the youth of 1976 and be radical in their approach to the challenges they face today.
She was speaking during a Social Development Youth Month Event held at the Kliptown Conference Centre in Soweto on June 22.
The event, which brought together various youth leaders from all nine provinces, was hosted as part of Youth Month activities to pay tribute to the Class of ’76 who took a stand against Afrikaans being used as a medium of instruction in township schools.
“The youth today must work together with all sectors of society to find solutions to the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality. Radical ideas are needed for change to take place… youth need to be radical in the battle of ideas, in finding ways for the redistribution of wealth and in helping to improve service delivery,” said Minister Dlamini.
She also stressed that unity in action was critical for achieving these objectives.
“We urge young people to be united in their pursuit for a better life for themselves and the rest of society. However, for unity to be effective, it must also go hand-in-hand with diversity. Only through robust interaction with others and an exchange of ideas can our social challenges be adequately dealt with,” explained Minister Dlamini.
The commemoration took its cue from the national Youth Month theme “Youth of South Africa, history makers and the legends of the future” and sought to encourage young people to be active citizens by involving themselves in the governance and development matters that affect their future.
Among the “legends” who gathered in Kliptown was Sithembile Matshebe (29) from Butterworth, Eastern Cape. Matshebe is chairperson of the Sinentlantla Cooperative established in 2012 to create employment opportunities for its members.
The cooperative, which has five members, manufactures bricks and sells them in the local market. It has been funded to the tune of over R900 000 by the Department of Social Development over three years and provides temporary job opportunities for out-of-school youth in Butterworth.
Also in Kliptown for the gathering was Silindelo Dlomo (23), from Greytown, KwaZulu Natal, who represented the Bhambatha Community Care Centre which was started by youth in 2009 to provide care and support to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and TB as well as orphaned and vulnerable children.
The Bhambatha Community Care Centre is supported by the Departments of Health and Social Development in providing home-based care and psychosocial support to vulnerable groups. They also run community awareness campaigns on HIV and TB.
The centre works through the Department of Social Development’s Isibindi Model – an initiative that deploys trained community-based child and youth care workers in communities in an innovative team outreach programme providing care, protection and developmental support to vulnerable children and families – to provide support vulnerable children.
The Isibindi Model reached nearly 90 000 vulnerable children with its services in the 2013/14 financial year.
Minister Dlamini concluded by encouraging the “legends” present to use the development they have received through the support of government to empower other young people in the communities they come from in order to get more young people involved in community development work and taking responsibility for their own future.
To this end, she expects to receive full reports from these youth leaders at the next National Social Development Youth Camp to be held in December 2014.
Media inquiries:
Lumka Oliphant
Cell: 083 484 8067
E-mail: lumkao@dsd.gov.za
