Staff Reporter
The Youth Sector within the National Dialogue will launch pilot community action dialogues in six provinces as part of efforts to turn young people’s demands for economic inclusion into practical local plans.
The dialogues will be rolled out in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, Limpopo and the Northern Cape, the Youth Sector said in a statement on Wednesday, as South Africa marked Youth Month and 50 years since the June 16, 1976 uprising.
Dates were not supplied for the dialogues.
“These pilot dialogues represent an important step towards building an inclusive and participatory National Dialogue process that is rooted in the lived realities of young people and communities,” the Youth Sector said.
“While the generation of 1976 fought against legislated exclusion and political oppression, today the struggle confronting young people has evolved into a battle against economic exclusion.”
The Youth Sector said the country’s young population should be a driver of development, but instead reflected “a painful contradiction” in which young people were “educated but unemployed, ambitious but unsupported, innovative but denied access to capital, markets and economic opportunities”.
The Youth Sector Engagement identified four priority areas: economic transformation, employment and entrepreneurship; policy, governance and youth participation; health and social development; and education and skills.
The sector called on government, business, labour, civil society, development partners and other stakeholders to move beyond speeches and commit to practical action on youth economic inclusion, entrepreneurship, skills development, job creation and access to finance.
It said young people remained underrepresented in decision-making despite South Africa having one of the youngest populations on the continent, and warned that policy commitments had to translate into “meaningful inclusion and economic outcomes”.
On education, the statement said too many young people were qualified but unemployed, and called for education, skills development and entrepreneurship support to be better aligned with economic opportunities.
“As we commemorate the legacy of June 16, we reaffirm that the struggle of this generation is for economic justice, dignity and opportunity,” the Youth Sector said.
“The spirit of 1976 demands that we move from dialogue to action, from promises to implementation, and from fragmentation to collective action.”
INSIDE EDUCATION
