Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities, says the youth are still bearing the weight of structural inequities that express in violent ways.
“The devastation brought by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our livelihoods and social mobility. We have also been faced with challenges of widespread unrest, increasing youth unemployment, raging fires in the Western Cape, the flooding in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, and the second pandemic of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF),” Nkoana-Mashabane said.
On Thursday, the Minister spoke at the start of Youth Month in Soweto.
This year’s Youth Month was sponsored by the Department of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities and the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), in collaboration with the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture, to commemorate the 46th anniversary of the 1976 student rebellion.
“Promoting sustainable livelihoods and resilience of young people for a better tomorrow” is the theme for Youth Month 2022.
This year’s Youth Month campaign aims to emphasize the issues that young people experience, provide viable answers through conversations, and highlight the opportunities that are available to them.
The event kicked up at Morris Isaacson High School, with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Hector Peterson Memorial following.
Youth Month, according to Nkoana-Mashabane, is dedicated only to issues impacting South African youth, such as unemployment, GBVF, and mental health.
She emphasized the importance of maximizing the country’s youth population’s potential.
“This includes the political will by government and captains of industry to ensure an integration of youth across all strategic sectors of our society, especially the economy,” the Minister said.
Nkoana-Mashabane stated that the administration will participate in a series of events and talks with the youth over the next four weeks to honor the sacrifices of the 1976 youth while charting a road ahead to address the current difficulties they face.
Asanda Luwaca, the executive chairperson of the NYDA, stated that youth empowerment requires collective responsibility, and that in order to achieve this, all sectors must report on their youth development programs.
“I am strongly of the view that we no longer, as a country, have the luxury to just talk about youth development but have the collective responsibility to make sure that it is tangible,” Luwaca said.
On June 16, 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa will deliver the keynote message at the 2022 Youth Day commemoration in the Eastern Cape.