Global Youth

Service Day.

11-13 April 2014.

Igniting patriotism. Encouraging civic duty. Promoting collaboration. Building society, one community at a time.

This year was my first time celebrating global youth service day, it is unfortunate that not many young people are aware of international days of service such as this one as it would be amazing to see young people taking part in making their communities a better place. I had a lot of fun with my United 2013 team throughout the weekend and cannot wait to get my   hands dirty again in the service of my community.

11 April – Values: The day was spent at Protea South Park rehabilitating the neglected park and the focus was the principles underpinning service, leadership and civic duty.

12 April- Knowledge:  We worked with the Mabaleng Disability Forum doing a door to door discussion with community members with regard to the clean-up of land to be used for agricultural and recreational purposes for people with disabilities and surrounding communities. It was great engaging with community members and finding out what views they shared and ideas they had about how the piece of land should be utilized.

13 April- Skills:  A visit to the Seymour farm saw us using the day to learn different aspects of the farming process in an attempt to develop abilities and talents to contribute constructively. We were taught about the effort and time spent in farming, from planting to harvesting.

Presidential Youth Indaba

The Presidential Youth Indaba on Jobs and Skills was hosted by the Department of Economic Development from the 28^th Feb – 3^rd March 2014 at the Birchwood Conference Centre, youth from all 9 provinces were invited to attend the event which was the first of its kind.

Topics included panel discussions on the Youth Employment Accord, Internships, Green economy, Rural Development and Youth, Education, Skills and decent work amongst others. The programme featured video clips on the governments national infrastructure plan. Panellists included the likes of Sidumo Dlamini – President of COSATU, Yishen Pillay- Chairperson- NYDA, Minister Ebrahim Patel (Economic Development) and Professor Adam Habib- Vice Chancellor of Wits University.

The Indaba allowed youth to interact with key players in industry through Q&A sessions and to hold government accountable for the unacceptable rate of youth unemployment. The indaba was well co- ordinated and the four day programme was packed with really important issues and ran more or less smoothly with the only hiccup being the registration and check in of guests which was a tedious experience however the staff at the Birchwood Conference Centre were professional and very friendly.

Unfortunately we were treated to a lot of ‘going to’ , ‘planning to’ and ‘thinking about’ by speakers and panellists regarding the work necessary to  change the employment landscape for young South Africans and some may suggest the experience was a frivolous exercise due to the fact that besides 12 month learnership programmes to which one delegate commented “Young people end up being learnership specialists.” And Public employment schemes that Minister Nxesi described as “defensive measures against poverty” and which he exclaimed will be upscaled saying “ We would like to see more permanent part- time work.”- confusing- government showed no evidence of a solid plan that will be implemented to change the current situation the country’s youth find themselves in.

The Indaba was closed off by an address by the President of the Republic, which many young people looked forward to, unfortunately a Q&A session was not included in his portion of the programme.

R

 

oundtable discussion with 

NYDA Chairman Yishen Pillay.

In the last week of October, Young Leaders were invited to a roundtable discussion with the NYDA to discuss the issue of such youth unemployment and brainstorm how we can overcome this huge problem in our country.

Mr Pillay described it as an important platform as it promotes a culture of critical thinking and action orientated youth who are also change agents.

It was a highly informative session and many issues were raised as to the negative media attention the NYDA Chairperson had been receiving, the lack of visibility of the agency with young people and digitization for youth in rural areas amongst others.

 

Social Entrepreneur and TUKS Student Tshepo Seloane had even put together a google docs survey which he circulated using twitter to get the views of other young people who had not had the fortune of receiving an invite to the discussions.

The final point was all about turning dialogue into action, the idea to form a Youth Committee that would work hand- in- hand with the agency and whose focus would be to take such challenges and find practical solutions was well received by Mr. Pillay and to date the NYDA has promised to get the ball rolling in this regard.

[October has been quite a roller coaster month for me…  I'm going to dedicate the next few posts on the happenings of my birthday month and why it’s been one of my favourites…]

First on the list…

One Young World Summit 2013.

I attended the One Young World Summit from the 2^nd - 5^th of October.

For those of you who are awkwardly not in the know this is a summit that hosts young leaders from all around the world where they get together to debate and formulate solutions for the pressing issues the world faces.  I was chosen as part of a delegation of 20 exceptional young minds to represent the City of Johannesburg and Executive Mayor Cllr Mpho Parks Tau, after being shortlisted from over 300 candidates- impressive right? It was the first time the summit was hosted in Africa.

Delegates had the privilege to engage in talks with world leaders and pioneers such as Kofi Annan, Sir Richard Branson, Professor Muhammad Yunus, Sir Bob Geldof, Francois Pienaar and Jamie Oliver.

One of my favourite experiences during the summit was a breakout sessions on Leadership and Governance to Constitution Hill with DA Parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko where delegates shared their thoughts on Africa and its role in the global village and on the last day of the summit we had the amazing honour of meeting mama Winnie Mandela who was kind and warm and truly embodied the grace and strength of an African Leader… an African Woman!

What I valued most from the summit is the change in mindset and hunger to work harder that you cannot help but take with you after being exposed to so many amazing people, I wake up with the desire to be better than I ever was the day before and the thought of being anything less than extraordinary is simply unacceptable- for that I can only be eternally grateful.

M

y team and I are working on an exciting Community Engagement project with two street artists who sell their work outside Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto.

This year we decided on developing the skills of local street artists by exposing them to a new art form they had no training in- Pottery! Our hope is that the artists can incorporate the new skill into their existing works and pass on their new found knowledge onto others and expand their repertoire. 

We are looking to address MDG's 7 and 8

 

Here are some pics of the artists' (Lesly and Lebo) work at the museum...

 

International Youth Camp... 

Amazing Memories... 

Amazing Lessons...

I attended International Youth camp / International Work camp around this time last year in Qunu Eastern Cape- birth place of Nelson Mandela- which was hosted by the Nelson Mandela Museum and German CVJM (YMCA). The camp gave me the amazing opportunity to interact with 70 diverse young adults from all over Europe and Africa with participating countries such as Belarus, Botswana, Germany, Israel, Kenya, Lesotho, Lithuania, Malawi, Namibia, Netherlands  Poland, Russia, South Africa, Slovakia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

We discussed world issues that affected us as young individuals our countries and our communities and we learnt that we had a lot in common with one another. We were separated into focus groups namely; Care Work and Fine Arts, Photography, Drama and Story-telling, Poetry and Music, Archives and finally Documentation which was the elective I fell under. 

My elective had the daunting task of recording all the events of the memorable two week long camp and this is where my passion for leadership and humanitarian efforts truly deepened. Speaking to people my age from all walks of life really opened up my eyes to just how much there is to still learn and how much I still had to give back in my life and for that I am eternally grateful.

 To see more of what we did on the camp and to read an article I put together during my time at the camp check out the International Workcamp blog at:     

http://qunu-workcamp.blogspot.com/

The article is titled 'Once Upon A Time...' 

Disappointment...

The South African Oxford School dictionary defines disappointment as:

D

isappoint: verb to fail to do what someone hoped for or desired or expected. Disappointment noun.

But what does it really mean to be disappointed in someone, but more over in yourself? Well... I’ve recently dealt with disappointment and found a really easy way to conquer this somewhat tricky hurdle of life, I told myself: ‘Palesa, disappointment is like a strong wind, and you in this case are a mountain...the mountain will never bow down to the wind!’ it sounds a little silly when I say it out aloud, but low and behold it really worked, nothing sucks more than a strong black woman buckling under pressure and there’s nothing cute about throwing yourself a pity party, so instead of staying in bed in a foetal position I figured I’d look at disappointment as a stepping stone for greater things in life, and at the risk of sounding extremely clichéd- everything happens for a reason... right?

I did however notice the stronghold disappointment has- not within me, but in my peers, how depressing it was to hear people say:  “ Don’t worry about it friend” or  “You’ll be okay...” disappointment never really bothered me until everyone around me brought it up, so was I disappointed or we’re they? “ To fail to do what someone had hoped or desired or expected.”

Who is this “someone” they’re speaking of? Because as I recall I was perfectly fine until everyone started making a huge deal of my and disappointments relationship, disappointment and I knew exactly where we stood in each other’s spheres until everyone came and blurred our love- hate relationship. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying friends shouldn’t show compassion when they feel you’ve been hurt by something- its human instinct to want to comfort a loved one when they’re...well...disappointed, but don’t we tend to jump the gun by assuming someone is more affected by something then they let on, flocks of friends coming to you to tell you how sorry they are can really put a damper on a girls mood.

 Luckily we all have that one friend with enough common sense to recognise that you might not need a pep talk on dealing with life’s hardships, all you might just want is time alone... just you and disappointment, re-evaluating your relationship, re- building boundaries and accepting that hey... shit happens, and once you know what’s what, you can build a bridge- on your own terms- and GET OVER IT!

 So to my friends out there, just in case you didn’t know, I’m taking this opportunity to let you know: Yeah, disappointment sucks, but it’s not the end of the world- As Marlene Dietrich said: Friends are Gods way of taking care of us, and as much as I love you... The sad looks just aren’t stundee, and if I didn’t bring it up clearly I don’t want to talk about it yet, or it really doesn’t bother me that much...so (and I say this with every fibre of love in my being)...back off and let a sistah breathe!!

Deuces!

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail, you will land amongst the stars” – Les Brown, Motivational speaker.