Cape Town - Government will use Youth Month, celebrated in June, to revive programmes designed to respond to challenges that are facing young people in South Africa.
"The Presidency will explore mechanisms to revive, with immediate effect, the Youth Development Forum (YDF), a public-private sector initiative that seeks to support youth development," said the Minister in the Presidency responsible for performance monitoring, evaluation and administration, Collins Chabane.
Briefing the media on Tuesday, Mr Chabane said government was mindful of the vast challenges still facing the youth.
These include access to quality education by young people, their health and well-being, economic participation and social inclusion.
In dealing with these challenges, Mr Chabane said it needed "a strengthened partnership between the public sector, the private sector, and civil society so as to give more impetus to youth development."
The struggles of South Africa's youth, he said, can never be in vain. "We must continue to rededicate ourselves to their cause and advance their ideals as best as we can," Mr Chabane said.
He further said the highlight of this year's Youth Month was the launch of the NYDA - formed out of the National Youth Commission and the Umsobomvu Youth Fund - as primary custodians of youth development in the country.
"The NYDA will be formally launched on 16 June 2009, as pronounced by the President in his State of the Nations Address. The launch of the NYDA forms part of the National Youth Month events to be championed by The Presidency," explained Mr Chabane.
The NYDA is primarily a developmental institution focused on advancing youth development through guidance and support to initiatives across sectors of society and spheres of government. It is also mandated to embark on initiatives that seek to advance the economic development of young people.
"... as we celebrate the strides made by our youth in shaping their own destiny, we breathe life into the NYDA which has the enormous task to set the agenda and provide leadership in ensuring that youth development interventions are implemented in a cohesive, structured, seamless, and integrated manner," said the minister.
He mentioned that some of the events planned for 16 June, will be marked by a series of activities such as the laying of a wreath at the Hector Peterson Memorial and a National Youth Rally in Katlehong Stadium, Ekurhuleni.
Other activities include the Department of Trade and Industry's International Cooperatives Conference which will include cooperatives enterprise exhibition owned by young people in KwaZulu-Natal.
There are also career exhibitions to provide career guidance including an ICT Career Summit hosted by the Department of Communications to encourage young people to take up careers in the sector.
The South African Police Service will also be running programmes to mobilise young people to act against the scourge of crime through participation in sports and cultural activities.
In an effort to take advantage of the opportunities during the FIFA Confederations Cup and 2010 FIFA World Cup, the Mpumalanga Youth Commission will be hosting a 2010 Seminar for unemployed graduates, in the field of marketing and tourism, to empower them to market 2010 within communities.
This will allow young people to gain work experience in their field of study, said Mr Chabane.
He said the programme of activities was designed to respond to challenges that are facing young people in South Africa.
"The programme promotes the participation of young people in the economy and creates platforms to market their work," he said.
Youth Day, which is marked on 16 June, honours the deaths of hundreds of Soweto school children that changed the course of the country's history during the 1976 uprising.
Protests started in African schools after a directive from the previous Bantu Education Department that Afrikaans had to be used on an equal basis with English as a language of instruction in secondary schools.
The issue, however, was not so much the Afrikaans as the whole system of Bantu education which was characterised by separate schools and universities, poor facilities, overcrowded classrooms and inadequately trained teachers.
On 16 June 1976 more than 20 000 pupils from Soweto began a protest march. In the wake of clashes with the police, and the violence that ensued during the next few weeks, approximately 700 hundred people, many of them youths, were killed and property destroyed.
Youth Day and month commemorates these events.
