Bridge the gap: Commit to Youth Development

It is remembering the great sacrifices the youth of South Africa made to deliver a country that is free and fair to all.

We face may challenges as a nation, even though we have recently celebrated 20 years of democracy with our fifth national elections. Some of the greatest challenges facing our nation is to conquer poverty, homelessness, illiteracy and ignorance. These challenges more so face the youth of our country – black and white.

The voice of the youth is loud and clear – we must take immediate action to commit to youth development to bridge this gap. As a City we must broaden the youth’s skills base by actively investing in youth development; improve our productivity; and make our goods more competitive in a world that is growing increasingly smaller.

Ekurhuleni is home to over three million people, with over a million being unemployed. This is a crisis in the making, especially with unemployment amongst our youth. Desperately needed skills training and development is required with approximately 36.9 per cent of unemployed people who are youth between the ages of 15 and 34 years.

Ekurhuleni is determined to address the issue of unemployment. The Executive Mayor of Ekurhuleni assured delegates who attended the recent job summit held in Alberton that it will not just be another ‘talk shop’. The City has made a commitment to empowering the youth through a Job Creation Strategy announced by the Mayor during his State of the City address in March.

The youth job summit is one of the tools, which will be used to mobilise and leverage strategic partnerships with the private sector and other social partners to create work and training opportunities for the youth in Ekurhuleni. The event, which was split into two streams, brought together civil society, business and academics with the City’s political and administrative leaders to a round table to discuss unemployment and low skills levels.

During the summit, expert speakers shared their experiences and best practices in both job creation and skills development strategies to stimulate youth development in Ekurhuleni. Many unemployed youth were also matched with companies that have enlisted on the City’s Graduate Placement and Experiential Learning Programme. Through this programme, Ekurhuleni will place unemployed graduates and matriculants to gain experiential learning exposure.

Lets bridge the gap and move the youth of Ekurhuleni forward.

Diamond.Neil@ekurhuleni.gov.za