Day 2 of the EmpowaYouth Weekend

The MEC responsible for Finance, Economic Development and Tourism, Mr Abraham Vosloo today addressed the masses on the second day of the Transport Education Training Authority EmpowaYouth Summit held at the VGK Church. During his address, MEC Vosloo thanked TETA and all the stakeholders for bringing such a program to the ZF Mgcawu District and outlined some of the programs of the provincial government that are in line with youth empowerment.

MEC Vosloo asserted that the Northern Cape Provincial Government will not be able to fight youth unemployment alone but needs the assistance of stakeholders such as TETA. MEC Vosloo emphasized that unemployment among young people in the province is concerning and that during the release of the latest Census, Stats SA confirmed this as a crisis for the whole country. The MEC encouraged young people to get formal education at a TVET College to compete at the same level of education and employment. MEC Vosloo said the Premier of the province, Dr Zamani Saul after noticing all the challenges of the youth in the province appointed MEC Venus Blennies responsible for Women, Youth, People with disabilities and E-governance to specifically focus on these special groups.

The Executive Mayor of the ZF Mgcawu District Municipality, Cllr Maryna Basson closed the session by reiterating that the purpose of this summit was to empower, capacitate and expose young people to entrepreneurship, bursaries and other potential opportunities to mitigate the youth unemployment statistics. Cllr Basson thanked all stakeholders for their permanent efforts to make this youth empowerment summit a remarkable success and said they have planted a seed and will soon reap its fruits. She further urged the youth to make use of all the opportunities presented to them.