By More Matshediso
Pretoria - Youth organisations have committed to ensure that government’s plans to develop and empower youth are implemented, and will hold departments accountable for youth programmes.
Speaking to SAnews on Tuesday following the Presidential Youth Working Group inaugural meeting convened by President Jacob Zuma, Tessa Dooms from Youth Lab said she was most impressed to see government including non-political youth organisations in its plans.
She said the newly established working group will be handy in holding departments accountable for the viability of youth desks set up by government.
“It was recommended that we look at the already existing programmes meant for youth to see who is benefiting and how more youth can benefit from those programmes,” she said.
She said the working group will also ensure that government and the private sector make use of best practices that will include youth participation, especially in rural areas.
The Presidential Youth Working Group was established to mainstream youth development and empowerment in the work of government.
The Executive Chairman for South African Council for Graduates Co-operative, Thamsanqa Maqubela, said he requested in the meeting that young people of the country be included in the budget of the state, as they make up the majority of the country.
“We want to see the budget, not only of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), but we want to see institutions of civic organisations, also agriculture and mining included in youth budget allocation,” he said.
He said youth did not want to just be given handouts but want to take part in programmes.
Youth representatives also called on the private sector to assist in the development of youth.
On the day, President Zuma sat in a meeting with representatives of youth from various sectors including education, agriculture, small business, sports, religious sectors, health and youth development.
The President was supported by the the Deputy Minister for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency, Buti Manamela.
Deputy Minister Manamela said the aim of the meeting was to bring government and youth organisations together to promote youth participation in governance and policy making, in order to build a better life for young people.
The Deputy Minister said the working group will ensure that youth programmes are outcome based and beneficial.
According to the Deputy Minister, President Zuma has deemed the working group as designed to enable young people to shape government policy by sensitising government to the impact of policies on the youth and the future of the country.
He said the President called on everyone to make youth development their business, and that every government department must ensure that its policies talk to youth development.
The Deputy Minister said the meeting also discussed the National Youth Policy (NYP), which is anchored on the National Development Plan (NDP), and aims to respond to four big challenges faced by young people.
The challenges are joblessness, poor skills levels, poor health care access including reproductive health care, and a divided nation and the drug scourge.
“The policy outlines initiatives and programmes that respond to these challenges which hinder our young people from taking charge of their destiny,” said the Deputy Minister.
He said the initiatives include capitalising on the R2.7 billion made available by both the IDC and Small Enterprise Finance Agency to finance youth-owned enterprises; accelerating the implementation of the Youth Employment Accord of 2013; introducing interventions to provide unemployed and poor young people with income and opportunities for community service and engagement.
Also included in the initiatives is ensuring that youth brigades coordinated with the National Youth Service engage 1 million young people over a period of two years as per the New Growth Path.
The Department of Basic Education working with private providers should support learners who need a second chance to pass matric and matric rewrite programmes should be supported and widely known.
The initiatives also suggest that the Department of Higher Education and Training must develop an articulation policy to harmonise education between schools, ABET centres, Community Colleges, TVET colleges, universities and other providers of education and training.
“President Zuma emphasised that the feeling of exclusion suffered by young people who have never held a job or even earned an income, and thus still depend on their ageing parents means work to turn this around should begin now,” he said.
He quoted President Zuma saying: “We must work with young people themselves to turn the picture around. I was very happy when the Deputy Minister confirmed to me what I always knew, that young people do not want handouts but want to be enabled. They want to be given ‘a hand up’. The initiatives to be prioritised by the Presidential Working Group should achieve exactly that”.
National Youth Policy 2020
South African Youth Council President Thulani Tshefuta said young people of South Africa have welcomed and are excited with the adoption of the National Youth Policy 2020 by Cabinet.
“As young people, we can see our expressions through the consultations in the final document. The NYP sets the youth agenda for young people to be part of the solution,” he said.
The Deputy Minister said the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation has established work-streams that will take the work of the Presidential Youth Working Group forward.
The work-streams are Economic Participation and Transformation; Education, Skills and Second Chances; Health Care and Combating Substance Abuse; Nation Building and Social Cohesion; and Effective and Responsive Youth Development Institutions. - SAnews.gov.za
