Johannesburg - Johannesburg City Mayor Parks Tau on Thursday thanked His Royal Highness Prince Harry for his visit and for highlighting issues of youth development and job creation.
“We have been able to see and engage with the young entrepreneurs. The most exciting part was seeing the excitement of the young entrepreneurs to implement their ideas,” said Tau.
Prince Harry and the mayor had completed a walkabout at the Bus Factory and had interacted with young entrepreneurs who were showcasing their work at allocated stands at the Bus Factory in Newtown in Johannesburg.
The stands included a wide variety of business ventures, from Vuyo’s Boerewors Rolls, to an online magazine called LiveSA.
Earlier, Prince Harry met with the inaugural South African winners of the 2015 Queen’s Young Leaders Award.
Launched in 2014 by Their Royal Highnesses The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, The Queen’s Young Leaders Programme celebrates the achievements of exceptional young people from across the Commonwealth, who are taking the lead to transform the lives of others and make a lasting difference in their communities.
As part of his tour to South Africa, Prince Harry met with winners Emma Dicks, 26, Noshipho Bele, 25, and Patrice Maduri, 22, at Siyabonga Secondary School, Soweto.
Each winner was recognised for working to support others and to inspire change.
During her training to become a teacher, Bele set up a programme called Mentor Me To Success, which provides one-to-one support to school pupils, especially girls. She wants to develop this service, prioritising underprivileged schools and communities.
Dicks co-leads Innovate South Africa, which runs a programme called InChallenge. The programme asks students to identify a problem in their community and propose a solution to it. Emma also launched Code For Cape Town, which introduces girls to web-building skills.
Madurai founded the project Cupcake reSolution, which hosts mobile offices to enable people to register as citizens. As another way to reach out to the community, Cupcake reSolution also takes cupcakes to schools for children who have never celebrated birthdays.
During their visit at Siyabonga Secondary School, along with Prince Harry, they met with young people who had completed the “Nelson Mandela – The Champion Within” training programme to empower students with the skills needed to succeed as leaders and entrepreneurs.
The group then visited the Bus Factory in Johannesburg, where they met young entrepreneurs participating in programmes to help them develop their business skills.
Later there was a performance by local artists, who collaborated with Tau to create a “Jozi” song that described life in the city.
Prince Harry nodded his head to the music before he bid everyone goodbye.
The Queen’s Young Leaders Programme was established in 2014 by The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust in partnership with Comic Relief and the Royal Commonwealth Society in recognition of the Queen’s lifetime of service to the Commonwealth.
Each year, from 2014 to 2018, 60 exceptional young people will be selected to become a “Queen’s Young Leader”.
Through the awards and an associated grants scheme, the programme, over the next three years, will support thousands of young people to achieve their goals.
The winners of the 2016 Queen’s Young Leaders Programme will be announced on Tuesday, December 8.
ANA
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