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Government and opportunities for youth

National Development Agency| Government services for the youth | What does government say about the youth? | Links to youth websites

Government sees the youth as the future leaders of our country.

Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande recently highlighted post-school opportunities for the Class of 2011 and all out-of-school youth.

Other opportunities:

Government has established a range of support programmes and strategies to empower youth in the various sectors such as:

Minister of Arts and Culture Paul Mashatile reported in his budget vote speech for 2012/13 that as part of the Mzansi Golden Economy Strategy, a number of high impact programmes targeting youth and women in the arts have been identified. These include:
- the Indoni, My Heritage My Pride programme which aims to provide young people with life skills training, education and encouragement in appreciating who they are, their heritage and their culture
- the Trendsetter Initiative through which the department encourages youth to participate in the arts and thus contribute to the development of their communities
- the Public Art programme, skilling young people and employing them to beautify their communities using their artistic abilities
- the Emerging Creatives programmes, providing an opportunity for 40 young designers to showcase their designs along side established designers at the Design Indaba in Cape Town.
Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) initiatives that sees young people involved in the refurbishment, rehabilitation, and maintenance of community infrastructure across the country.
Learnerships and internships focussed on raising the skills capacity of young people through Sector Education and Training Authorities.
National Rural Youth Service Corps programme aims to enhance skills development by providing unemployed youth in the rural areas with opportunities to work in their communities and to be trained to provide the necessary services for local socio-economic development. A total of 7 398 youth were enrolled in the programme in 2010. The enrolment number will gradually increase by recruiting a further 5 000 youth during this financial year (2011/12) and a further 10 000 during the 2012/13 financial year.
The Western Cape Provincial Government has several initiatives for young people.
Gauteng Provincial Government announced youth employment programmes for 2012, namely a youth placement programme, Township Enterprise Hubs and a Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme (Y-Age).

National Youth Development Agency

nyda The National Youth Development Agency is a government agency whose role is to initiate, facilitate, implement, coordinate and monitor youth development interventions aimed at reducing youth unemployment and promoting social cohesion.

The NYDA’s mandate is to:

Advance youth development through guidance and support to initiatives across sectors of society and spheres of government.
Embark on initiatives that seek to advance the economic development of young people.
Develop and coordinate the implementation of the Integrated Youth Development Strategy for the country.