Rustenburg - The Rustenburg local municipality in the North West has launched its youth activity programme to commemorate Youth Month, ahead of Youth Day on June 16.
"The main intention is not to have the initiative only to be [the] iniatiave of June, but everything that we will be doing in all the activities we must be able to say next year this time, here is an artist from Rustenburg that has been able to access opportunity and has been able to make it to mainstream music industry or other space of arts and culture," mayoral committee member for economic development Ofentse Kombe said at the launch of #Y4R (Youth 4 Rustenburg) on Friday.
The municipality had created a platform where the youth could share ideas on problems facing them.
"The youth of Rustenburg needs to be prioritised. In the month of June we are dedicating our efforts towards information dissemination among the youth, towards creating platforms for networking with the youth from business, government, from private institutions, in terms of supply development, agriculture, education, career exposes, arts, tourism, and all other economic sectors that you can find, and we are now driving a dedicated effort looking at the stats in terms of youth unemployment," he said.
Local economic development MMC Ofentse Kombe said the Rustenburg municipality has created a platform for youth to share ideas through the #Y4R (Youth 4 Rustenburg) initiative.
Video: ANA/Molaole Montsho
"We saw it fit that it is important that we try to get our youth out of a constant state of complaining. We [will] create a platform for them where they can share ideas, where they can even advise us what is it that we need to do as government to be able to address all the needs and challenges that are faced by the youth."
Kombe said the youth of 2019 faced a "different dynamic" of problems, compared to the youth of 1976.
Local economic development MMC Ofentse Komebe launched the municipality's initiative to empower the youth. Photo: ANA/Molaole Montsho
The Youth 4 Rustenburg (#Y4R) programmed aimed to empower young people and encouraged their participation in the country's economy, through career and skills development, enterprise and supplier development, and access to networking. The activities would be wrapped up with the mayoral cup soccer and netball tournament finals, and a 5km fun run/walk on June 29.
This would be in line with the 43rd anniversary of the June 16, 1976 uprising, when young people of Soweto took to the streets to protest against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools.