While young people face many obstacles, there are programmes working to uplift them, it is just a matter of knowing where to look, writes Lynley Donnelly
‘The youth” is an amorphous, ambiguous term. For corporations, politicians, the media, retailers, educators and even parents, the word suggests everything that is in-between and unfixed, but it also connotes raw, untapped potential.
In the past, young people were often the instigators of revolution. The struggle against apartheid became a channel through which the energies of young people drove positive change.
In today’s South Africa, however, the lines of that struggle are not as clearly defined. The struggle for democracy has become a struggle for economic justice, a battle over values around health, education and skills acquisition.
According to a presentation to Parliament last year by the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, an estimated half-a-million young people between grade 1 and grade 11 drop out of the education system every year. This in the face of an economy increasingly looking to highly skilled individuals to drive growth.
Add to this the ever-increasing rate of HIV/Aids infections among young people, high rates of crime and the number of young people living in poverty, and it makes for a gloomy picture indeed.
There are, however, very worthy projects working to uplift young South Africans and turn these statistics around. In this year’s Youth Day supplement, the Mail & Guardian focuses on a few programmes that are working to address a number of these challenges. They range from private organisations to educational institutions and trade union programmes. Each in their own way is giving young South Africans the tools they need to grow this country.
One of these is the aforementioned Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF). Since its inception in 2001, the organisation has succeeded in training 150Â 000 young people, including over 50Â 000 in the National Youth Service Programme and 10Â 000 trained in scarce skills, according to Gugu Mjadu, communications and corporate affairs manager.
”The fund has provided business development support and loan finance to more than 83Â 000 entrepreneurs, leading to more than 87 000 jobs being created and/or sustained,” says Mjadu.
The programme has also created a countrywide network of 121 youth advisory centres which have been visited by more than 1,3-million young people. The UYF has also launched an information hub for young people through its website www.youthportal.org.za, which has so far received six million hits.
With positive examples such as these, it is no surprise that young people are still relatively positive about the future of the country, according to market research company Instant Grass, which specialises in the youth demographic.
Instant Grass uses an extensive network of ”grasses” (Scottish colloquial for spies) — young, highly networked individuals with a penchant for observation and information-gathering. Armed with digital cameras, they move through their network of friends and associates gathering information that is sent back to Instant Grass.
”Most [young people] are very positive about South Africa in general,” says Dali Tembo of Instant Grass. However, they are well aware that the country has a lot of problems to deal with, he says.
Tembo says young people are unsurprisingly cynical and apathetic when it comes to politics. Politics is too removed from their daily lives to mean much to them.
The search for employment is a reality that young people battle with every day and is of grave concern to them. While there is awareness of programmes designed to help young people find jobs, learn skills or start businesses, many do not know how to access these opportunities.
Getting ahead for many young people, says Tembo, is about working the connections they have. ”The youth believe getting ahead happens through connections and they view BEE as a connection thing.”
This perception is particularly strong among young people from rural areas, he says. They believe they simply do not have the connections and see BEE as something that does not work for them. This scepticism around BEE ”is sparking a great deal of internal debate” among the youth, says Tembo.
But all of this comes with a high level of expectation, he points out, particularly around things like service delivery. It has been entrenched in young people’s psyches and it has been very difficult for government to meet their expectations.
Mjadu concurs. One of the greatest challenges facing the UYF is the ”sense of entitlement on the part of some young people”.
”Our work is to facilitate as many resources as we have to enable young people to achieve their dreams,” she says. ”However, it all starts with them — they should work hard for it themselves.”
David Maimela, president of the South Africa Students’ Congress, says the overarching scheme driving the upliftment of young people is the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition. He believes it has been key to giving the country direction in terms of addressing the skills most needed by the economy.
”If one looks at this programme, it mobilises the education sector, the business sector and everybody relevant —[to] contribute to youth empowerment,” he says.
He argues for more joint investment by government and the private sector into youth initiatives, including youth cooperatives and small businesses, be they in the arts, the sciences or any other sector.
There are several areas that need focus, says Maimela. The need to expand access to education and align this access with market trends and what is required by a fast changing economy is very important. Greater focus should also be placed on fostering entrepreneurial businesses.
”You can’t [conclude] that because young people are sitting and doing nothing in the township — that they have no creative ideas to build their own collective futures.”
Access to mentorship would increase access to the business world. Mentorship should be given in the right context, however, without being too prescriptive.
”The youth need mentoring in almost all facets and stages of their lives,” he says.
