Johannesburg - Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, led a wreath-laying ceremony at the Hector Pietersen Memorial as she officially unveiled this year's Youth Month.
Dlamini-Zuma has called on government departments and private stakeholders to partner with her department, as it is a department without much budget and relies on advocacy to further its own programmes.
She said one of her key objectives is to see young people, women, children, and people with disabilities get more support in their respective endeavours.
The minister, who has partnered with the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) for most of her programmes, said more needs to be done to end the scourge of gender-based violence (GBV) and unemployment in communities.
She said that as the country remembers the youth of 1994 who fought for the liberation of this country, she is grateful that education and other opportunities that were not available to the youth of 1976 are now readily available.
"The education system of the time allowed white kids to have free and compulsory education. We did not have that. Today, that is not the case. Of course there are still challenges, and we can’t deny that, but education is now accessible to every child in this country, whether poor or not," she said.
Under the stewardship of the Department of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD), in partnership with the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture (DSAC), the 2023 National Youth Month campaign was launched on Thursday at Uncle Tom's Hall in Soweto.
This year's Youth Month activities seek to present opportunities available to young people through showcasing and celebrating young change-makers. The 2023 Youth Month will be celebrated under the theme "Accelerating collaborations and opportunities to improve the lives of the youth."
In spite of the challenges that face young people and women and the lack of funding the ministry operates in, Dlamini-Zuma said she was excited to preside over this portfolio and was looking forward to unveiling programmes and projects that seek to uplift young people, women and people living with disabilities.
"This is a very important portfolio as it looks into the youth, women and people with disabilities but this portfolio has no budget. What excites me even though there is no budget, is that I can work with other people. I will try raise funds with different stakeholders and partners because this portfolio is supposedly a portfolio where you only advocate and you do not do anything. I am not used to advocating and not doing, so we have to find ways of doing," she said.
NYDA chairperson Asanda Luwaca unveiled a list of this year’s calendar of activities for the month of June. These include the 40 Under 40 Innovation programme which seeks to reward and recognise young people who are doing wonderful things, as well as a host of community-driven awareness campaigns on the programmes of the youth agency.
Luwaca said through government partnership with private sectors, and non-government organisations, this years’ Youth Month activities seek to present real-time opportunities available to young people and engage in dialogue to address the challenges faced by the youth.
The Star