Mr Alan Smith, Chairperson of the Skills Training Centre
Robert Roberts, Vice-Chairperson of the Skills Training Centre
Mr FW Farmer, Logra Community Skills Training Center Manager
Representatives of the following organisations/companies:
BP, City Mission, Napier Haven Night Shelter, Jenro Enterprises,
Jovern Electrical (Contractor), the churches and the Steenberg Foundation (network partner)
Trainers, lecturers and staff
But most importantly, the graduates and their proud families
I understand that the Chairperson Mr Philip Bam is absent, but I want to thank him and the Training Centre leadership for the opportunity you are affording me to share in this joyous occasion with you.
The celebration of this 6th Annual Certificate Ceremony of your training centre is a triumph for you as a community in your efforts not to let history decide your fate.
I am familiar with the history of the struggles of Logra Civic and the communities it served and still does. The previous regime neglected our communities on the Cape Flats.
I think in some cases the morale of our communities have been damaged to the extent that they could see no hope, and our youth turned to a life of crime and violence as a means of survival.
The Apartheid government was hoping you would die silently in poverty and degradation. Instead you refused, and with the same vigour that you fought the apartheid system, you are now one of the leading communities in the fight against poverty, and the struggle to reclaim the dignity of our communities.
The establishment of this skills training centre was not just about providing training opportunities for the sake of training; it is also about reclaiming your right to determine your own destiny.
As you plan now already for your next Certificate Ceremony, I think we as a country, as a people, need to constantly remind ourselves that communities put us into positions with specific mandates and expectations.
As government, our mandate is to fight poverty and create work. It is not only that we have to fight poverty and create work, but it is also the way in which we do this, that is important.
The centrality of partnerships with our schools, training institutions and community organisations, and the manner in which we interact with one another, is critical. We shall never succeed without working together, and all of us must work in ways, which build confidence within communities.
Just like Logra has a vision of becoming a self-sustaining institution, facilitating community development and empowerment; similarly ours is to build the Western Cape as a Home for All.
In order to build this Home for All, we have adopted an economic development strategy - Ikapa Elihlumayo - to grow and share the Cape. One of the lead strategies for Ikapa, is our Human Capital Development Strategy (HCDS), with a focus on youth.
Our mission with this strategy is to provide our young people with relevant skills, knowledge, values and attitudes that would allow them to participate meaningfully in the mainstream economy, and be internationally competitive.
The fact that your mission is exactly the same as ours - "provisioning of skills training to the unemployed members of the LOGRA community in order to facilitate employment and life-style management" - clearly demonstrates that we share common objectives and challenges.
Our President, Thabo Mbeki has called on all of us to "? move faster to address challenges of poverty, underdevelopment and marginalisation confronting those caught within the Second Economy, to ensure that the poor in our country share in our growing prosperity..."
The President is talking about communities such as these, which live in densely populated neighbourhoods on the Cape Flats, characterised by low levels of literacy; and high levels of unemployment, poverty, gangsterism and crime.
In his State of the Province Address, Premier Ebrahim Rasool reminded us that 26.3% of our citizens are unemployed. Most are youth between the ages of 16 and 35, which points to the massive skills challenge we face.
That is why I want to focus on the six priorities for youth development as identified by our Human Capital Development Strategy, especially in the area of skills development.
These priorities are: literacy and numeracy; further education and training in schools and colleges; infrastructure provisioning; school safety; redesign of the department and building social capital in education.
We are rolling out our Further Education and Training (FET) curriculum, which is providing our learners with new relevant high quality subjects in focus schools, preparing them for the world of work and higher education.
The recapitalisation of FET colleges is a major element of our national effort of delivering the skills capacity for our government's Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for SA - AsgiSA.
Together with many other initiatives, such as the establishment of the Youth Commission, the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, the Setas, I believe our government offers hope to the young people of today - hope and opportunity.
Something, which worries me a great deal though, is that too many of our young people drop out of school; get involved with gangsterism and crime; use and abuse alcohol and drugs; and display risky sexual behaviour.
I think the central question that we as adults must ask ourselves is: "are we doing everything we possibly can to deal with the challenges of creating opportunities for young people?"
I want to thank the business people and all partners for their involvement in the Logra Skills Training Centre. The involvement of business in skills provisioning and development creates opportunities for business to transfer skills and to share ideas.
Unless education and training institutions work together with the private and public sector, it will never meet the needs of those sectors. Without a close relationship, training centres will not be able to produce graduates with the requisite skills, nor will individuals be able to pursue new career opportunities.
My message to the students is this: if you work hard and are prepared to make sacrifices, then the sky is your limit. With the skills you have acquired, if you put in a bit of effort, you should not find it too difficult to get a job.
Consider this, the Soccer World Cup in 2010 in South Africa will present immense opportunities for entrepreneurs in the hospitality, hotel and tourism industry.
Our country needs to produce at least 13,000 engineers a year to build and upgrade roads, housing and infrastructure, and we only produce just above 3,000. Therefor the training courses you provide are of immense value for our country and economy.
As Government we are also responding to some of the challenges, but we need partners such as the Logra Community Skills Training Centre to create hope and opportunity for the youth.
I want to pay tribute to you and everybody else for playing such a crucial role in providing skills, resources, information, opportunities and employment to the youth of the Cape Flats.
The fact that this project has started with 21 trainees in 2001, and since grown to train over 500 youngsters to date, is testimony to the kind of leadership and determination of the Logra Civic Association. I am sure there is a lot of success stories one can listen to the whole day.
My Congratulations to the students who will be receiving certificates. Remember, you can only enjoy this for a while, because you now have a duty to apply your skills to help build your communities and our country.
Well done to the lecturers, and my Congratulations also to the families, who have had to provide money and made all sorts of sacrifices so that you can complete this course and get this certificate.
Thank you very much.
Enquiries:
Gert Witbooi
Media Liaison Officer
Office of the MEC for Education
Western Cape
Tel: 021 467 2523
Fax: 021 425 5689
Visit our website: http://wced.wcape.gov.za
