Members of the media
Head of department
Executive managers
All present here
Thank you for honouring this invitation.
The world economy is in recession, and lack of access to socio-economic opportunities, worsened by factors such as poverty; gender inequality and the rural nature of the North West province contribute towards keeping those at the lowest step of economic participation ladder trapped. I am sure most of us agree that this mainly affects young people of our society.
We have invited you here today as a strategic partner in our shared responsibility of information dissemination to our communities. This is mainly because I believe media plays a shared social responsibility of community building. We now have all come to know of the veteran and legend of community building within the media circle, the late Sowetan newspaper editor, Aggrey Klaaste.
Through his vision Sowetan has established itself as one of the key proponents of community building by the media. I am therefore saying to you today that our job is now to build the youth, to take them out of the streets, the drugs and ill-discipline but rather to expose them to meaningful life. Clearly there are many challenges that face the youth today and one of those is unemployment hence the youth tend to blame their wrong doing acts on unemployment.
In response to the challenges, the Department of Health and Social Development has prioritised implementation of Masupatsela Youth Pioneer programme aimed at improving skills and ensuring that young people from poor communities become employable through creation of job opportunities in social service professions and second economy development projects.
The province will recruit 9 360 from the departmental and municipal databases over a period of three years and train them in social work services, home based care services, early childhood development and volunteer programme linked to municipalities. This translates into 347 pioneers per year of which 10 percent shall be disabled young people, 40 percent males and the remaining 50 percent will be females.
Although the programme is focused in pilot phases to the social development sector, it is intended in the long run to become a government wide programme focusing on mobilising young people as pioneers in different sectors.
This is an initiative of the national Department of Social Development in collaboration with the Cuban Ministry of Labour and Social Security. The training that will be provided to these young stars follows a national ccurriculum and has therefore been accredited. It is a three (3) year programme for now which we also believe will go a long way in building the life skills of young cadres who understand the value system of our country.
Young people with matric certificate from fifteen local municipalities identified as most deprived by the Municipal Demarcation Board in 2001 are targeted.
As part of implementation, the department will tonight launch the programme at a Gala dinner in Rustenburg. Tomorrow 347 young recruited pioneers for the current financial will undergo three day induction workshop at the platinum rich town and thereafter will be released to eight training centers across the province. We have budgeted R5 million for the implementation of the programme over a period of three years. The pioneers will receive R1 500 monthly stipends and the department will ensure that they are being catered for in terms of transport, accommodation and meals. As part of the exit strategy, pioneers will be afforded scholarships and bursary schemes for auxiliary social work, and auxiliary community development.
I need to emphasise that we are working together with the municipalities to identify these young people. We are also inviting all of you here today to be our partner and to begin to sensitise young people in your localities about this opportunity as we will be recruiting on an annual basis.
Ke a leboga
