Youth & Sustainable development
Louis Green ACDP (MP)
Friday, 14 June 2002
Louis Green MP and African Christian Democratic Party Deputy President, gave the following speech in Parliament today on the youth and sustainable development:
Madam Speaker, I wish to dedicate my speech to the Students of SASVO, the Southern African Student Volunteers.
About four weeks ago I was privileged to attend a Regional Conference in Pretoria organized by Volunteer Vision and there I met representatives of SASVO (The Southern African Student Volunteers). I was intrigued by this Student Organization, because of their consistent contribution to sustainable development.
SASVO was established in 1993 to involve students in volunteer development work in the region. Society at large benefits greatly by this organization because it promotes the concept of voluntarism. It also fosters self-reliance, pride, the values of hard work and care for one’s community, the love of Africa and links between people which transcend national borders.
The good work done by SASVO is seldom recognized by the media because it is not sensational enough. The quiet, unassuming, constructive, voluntary work done by students in SASVO is in sharp contrast with the recent destruction of the University of the north and the violent march of COSAS.
The greatest challenge facing South African youth is to build confidence to compete at international level. The greatest negative hold over the youth’s confidence quotient is the weakness of our social fibre in the areas of moral commitment and civil obligation. A well-informed, able and disciplined youth population is invariably dependent on the confidence they have in the supportive social infrastructure they rely upon.
The recent destruction of the university of the North and the violent march by Cosas give us an indication of the gap between the values and aspirations of youth and that of the established institutional organs of society.
It is a sad reflection on our society that the youth has not learned to effectively manage and execute their grievances. We need to seriously ask the question what the contributing elements are which give rise to such violent and intolerable behaviour from our young people.
Government acted correctly to clamp down on the wrong actions of the students. In doing this, society brought to the attention of the youth that the functions and operations of a democratic country are governed by just rules.
Our youth needs from society the ability to dream and aspire after a vision. The greatest trust we can engender among the youth is to prepare for them a future with a vision of young people at work.
We hope that sustainable development is a step towards bringing our youth in the mainstream of policy development. Young people must be brought on board to assist in nation building.
The youth will lose its sense of unworthiness if it is engaged in works of value. Sustainable development can achieve this goal if it rids itself of obscure policy objectives. We need to involve our youth in sustainable projects that are measurable and achievable, like what is happening in SASVO.
Where do we start? We must start at the point of need of the young person. Let us get them involved in social development forums; in experimentation and research; allow them to manage certain executable policy initiatives and create cross-sector partnerships.
These are certain suggestions to give the youth some say towards connecting them with society through projects emanating from the sustainable development summit.
I thank you
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For further comment please call Louis Green MP at 083 4419295 or ACDP Media Liaison Liza Bloemetje at 082 478 1037