Excellent Vilakazi empowers the youth one talk at a time
He travels around the province, giving talks on entrepreneurship, health issues and job opportunities with the aim of mobilising the youth into taking action so they will be able to participate in the economic sphere.
Excellent Vilakazi, founder and head of operations at the Mpumalanga Independent Youth Board (MIYB), is empowering the youth of Gert Sibande District municipality and surrounding areas one talk at a time.
An excellent speaker in his own right, he travels around the province, giving talks on entrepreneurship, health issues and job opportunities with the aim of mobilising the youth into taking action so they will be able to participate in the economic sphere.
“We want to help the youth by creating an environment of success. We urge them to take that first step of arming themselves with knowledge on processes involved in government administration of all kinds,” said Excellent.
Born and bred in Silindile Location, Lothair, he has seen the struggle his peers face with poverty, unemployment and crime.
“The violent riots in February 2012 were a turning point for me and my peers. We saw many young people at the forefront crying about the lack of job opportunities here in Msukaligwa,” he says. He added they were concerned about environmental, economic and social issues that affect the youth with social ills such as HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, child-headed families, drugs and alcohol abuse a huge problem.
Excellent and his organisation were acknowledged by the district municipality, having won the Gert Sibande District Municipality Award for Youth Development in 2017 at the recently held GSDM Mayoral Excellence Awards. “The award has made a huge impact on me personally and the organisation as a whole, as people realise the impact we make and have made. People we approach for funding are now giving us the time of day whereas before they couldn’t care less. However, this is not for personal gain so I will not take it personally as we need all the help and exposure we can get,” he said.
Excellent is heading to Nelspruit to implement two programmes where they will give an NPO Compliance workshop and entrepreneurship programme that will ensure the youth has the necessary skills to start, maintain and grow their business.
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