City gives Jozi’s youth the key to opportunities

14 July 2016

 

In a bid to increase youth access to empowerment and employment opportunities, the City of Johannesburg showcased several offerings at a Youth Stakeholder Engagement session in Naledi, Soweto, on Wednesday July 13.

 

The session was part of Executive Mayor Cllr Parks Tau’s Tirisano Mmogo roadshow to engage communities on various issues affecting them.

Some of the initiatives on show at Naledi Hall on Wednesday included Vulindlel’ eJozi and Jozi@Workprogrammes. The Jozi SME Hub, Department of Labour and National Youth Development Agency also exhibited at the session, attended by scores of youths from across the City’s Region D.

In his address, Mayor Tau said the youth were the City’s “finest asset” that should be invested in from social and skills development perspectives to reap future dividends.

“Raise your hand and take advantage of the opportunities available to you. These opportunities have been created for you to try to break down barriers yourself,” Cllr Tau said.

The Mayor, who was accompanied by several Members of the Mayoral Committee, reiterated the City’s commitment to youth development.

“Economic growth is not our only solution to inequality. Enhancing and developing social capital, as well as the skills and knowledge capacity of Johannesburg’s youth, is key to the long-term and sustained move from inequality,” he said.

He said to ensure that the youth were equipped as “an up-and-coming, prepared and adequately trained workforce”, the City had put in place under the Vulindlel’ eJozi programme, through the Harambee Youth Accelerator, the Massive Open Online Varsity (MOOV) programme as well as learnerships to enhance training and skills acquisition.

“By channelling as many youth as possible into learning opportunities we as the City of Johannesburg will become increasingly more globally competitive, which in turn will open more doors,” Mayor Tau said.

He encouraged the youth to register with Vulindlel’ eJozi to take advantage of the suite of benefits that included MOOV and the Digital Ambassadors programme. Harambe’s Jeff Chauke said the initiative had so far secured 26 000 permanent placements in learning, business training and incubation services opportunities.

“We’re gaining traction and have secured partnerships with more than 200 businesses to assist with training and employment opportunities. You can only benefit from Vulindlel’ eJozi if you put yourself out there,” said Chauke.

Twenty-two-year-old Prince Seipati said he was overwhelmed by the amount of information made available at the session.

“I’ve passed matric but because I’ve no work experience I’m battling to find work. Today was a real eye-opener. Seeing and speaking to the stakeholders present has given me great insight and I can now go forward and try to get experience, instead of becoming more and more frustrated at being stuck at home,” he said.