Challenge an Opportunity

Many things can make a Monday blue. Mine was the main story of the seven pm news. While violence has become a regular occurrence in many of our communities, it is with sadness to take note when the ones happening in your home town make the prime time news bulletin.

Pic by: Lee Jacobs

What caught my eye was not only the dog walking with sunglasses. But during the insert a young man says the youngsters are throwing stones as they also want job opportunities.

Now I’m not sure if it is a coincidence but this story featured the same day as Statistician General, Pali Lehohla, made public the Vulnerable Group Series: The Social Profile of Youth 2009 –2014 report. Based on the report more coloured and black youth in South Africa are unemployed, involved in crime and uneducated.

In November 2014 I wrote a column Youth need to take responsibility. I allude to no one being raised to be bad, nor would any parent want their child to use drugs or become a gangster. And ask myself where did we fail and who is failing us?

I am strongly of the opinion that where you come from do not determine your destiny. Also that responsibility and ownership is not determined by government, but by parents, the youth and our society at large. It makes me wonder do communities not determine their identity.

As child we taught what is right and what is wrong. It should worry us that our youth despise this, favouring wrong over right. Why it is sad that children hold their seniors hostage – what happened to one of those tenth commandments to honour your mother and father. Surely in a community the aunty and uncle you pass is a mother and father and should be honoured.

I hold no answers. I do know we will all have to work together to address a challenge. In the column I wrote that society has the ability to create their identity, by being an active community – where we not only know our neighbours but where we talk to one another.

There is no quick remedy for our challenges, but it starts with me as an individual. Parents are only the vessel that brings a child into the world. It is still my task as child to be responsible and take ownership.

Paarl and more specific Drakenstein hold many potential. It has many success stories, icons and opportunities. If the story on the news showed me anything, it was an opportunity for myself and many others that now is the time for youth development through creating economic opportunities.

Youth: Pioneers of Reconstruction and Development

As South Africa commemorates Youth Day, it is important to know the day is about more than the death of Hector Peterson and the many others who died. It is also about the hundred of young people who stood up for what they believed was right and this sadly lead to the tragic death of so many.
Most of the young people I know show either little or no interest in this historic day. This happens with reason as most would say why dwell in the past if we have a future to work towards, why talk and talk about what happened and not what could be done?

Politicians will speak about our role as youth in our democracy and while their words might differ, the messages comes down to the same thing: the youth of today also face challenges.
South Africa's youth unemployment rate is not what it should be, gangsters rule neighbourhoods and this is becoming a comfort for so many. Drugs are used like I would eat sweets, if you don’t have a child before you are 21 then you not really that cool.

Despite these challenges our youth is good in technology, yet our lost generation, is a confuse generation. Confuse because:

• Some say there are no opportunities while there’s so many we just can’t decide what to go for.
• We think following friends is cool, and not thinking as an individual
• We think what we see, hear and our parents go through should also happen to me
• We sometimes don’t want to come out our comfort zones

The late former President Nelson Mandela said in 1995 “young people are reaching out to other to build a common future. This demands emotional maturity and moral strength.”

Our past is important and while we should learn from the past, we need to work on the present to move towards the future.
I would thus agree with Madiba, young people in their own unique way try and reach out to build a common future, sometimes society just tend to:

• Not see this
• Criticize the youth
• Reject the youth
• Judge young people

The common future Tata talks about is not just a common future amongst the youth but also all spheres of society.

At a youth day event in Zuurbekom in 1997, Mandela told young people “become pioneers of reconstruction and development, by your example you will be helping ensure that South Africa indeed becomes the country of our dreams.”
Building this common future would thus seek the moral strength and emotional maturity of all recognizing, informing, educating, motivating, encouraging and accepting the youth...