Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane has vowed to honour the late ANC stalwart Albertina Sisulu by drastically reducing the number of young women who survive on State grants.
Mokonyane made the commitment along with Simon Molefe - the chairman of the Gauteng arm of the National Youth Development Agency – during the launch of Gauteng Youth Month programme, which included preparations for the June 16 1976 Soweto student uprising commemoration.
The June 16 commemoration will be held at Orlando Stadium.
“In promoting the legacy of our matriarch, MaSisulu, we will be hosting the programme on social dialogue with young women in Gauteng.
“This will help in foregrounding the issues and values that our struggle stalwarts stood for, such as social consciousness, reproductive rights, sexual orientation, and access to economic opportunities as well as partnerships with the private sector on coaching and mentorship,” Mokonyane said.
She promised that within the next three years, only a few young women would remain on the provincial government’s data base of people receiving social grants.
Mokonyane said these women, who would be fast-tracked through the department of Social Development data base, would be given more training in various fields to allow them to fend for themselves in the future.
“We would be targeting women who are on child support grants. We will also be targeting women who were unable to go to universities and those that have degrees, but are still unemployed,” Mokonyane said.
She said the government’s plan to empower these women would be aggressive and concrete, saying it would be on the same extent as when the provincial government raised this year R58 million to allow 552 matriculants from poor households to register at universities and colleges.
Mokonyane also vowed to deal with unemployment and poverty, mostly in the townships, where households were unable to pay even for rates and services to their respective municipalities.
“In our effort to mitigate against poverty, unemployment and joblessness caused by the economic depression, we are going to implement one job per needy household for 100 days programme as part of the national youth service. This will be first implemented in Mogale City in a township to be identified,” she said.
Mokonyane, who hails from Kagiso in Mogale City, said government would also identify these needy households through the municipality’s data base.
“The department of Infrastructure Development has recruited 4 000 young people for the period of 12 months to gain work experience while receiving accredited training in the fields of built environment, health, social development, agriculture, library administration and community safety,” she said.
Mokonyane also asked young entrepreneurs to register their companies with the Gauteng Shared Services Centre, saying this would put them in line to access huge government tenders including in her office. - The Star