YCL Free State press statement on Provincial Jobs for Youth Summit 2011

3 December 2011

The Young Communist League in the Free State will hold its first ever and historic Provincial Jobs for Youth Summit by the end of the second week of 10-11 December 2011 in Bloemfontein. This is after the 3rd Provincial Congress of the YCL resolved that job creation for youth be a priority programme of the YCL towards the ANC centenary.

The Provincial Executive Committee of the YCL then resolved to convene not more than 200 delegates representing all youth formations across the length and breadth of the Free State. The aim is to discuss the crisis of unemployment that reproduces poverty, inequality and underdevelopment. This we believe will be done through the collaboration of all young people regardless of their affiliation, race, and political, social, religious and ideological divide.

Part of what is expected from the Summit is the establishment of the Jobs for Youth Coalition which will be responsible for the implementation of the resolution of the Summit. The task of the Summit will also be to lobby, to advocate and influence both public and private sector on variety of other policy interventions to unlock jobs for you.

The Summit will also be responsive to the provincial population statistics of over 3 million and the burden that this number is posing on the job creation initiatives in the province. It will also note that out of this population, an estimation of about 64, 4% is Sotho speaking, 11,9% Afrikaans and 9,1% Xhosa out of all. Over and above this statistical observation 75% of the population is black who are also in majority. The saddest observation is that only a tiny minority of mostly white dominated monopoly capital enjoys the possession of the wealth of this province which is largely concentrated in agriculture sector, mining and manufacturing. It is these areas of observation from the congress of young communists that persuaded the YCL in completing the work started at national level of our organisation.

The Summit will look into thematic discussions ranging from Education and Skills Development, Building youth cooperatives, Green Economy, Economic Transformation, Ownership and Control, State of Labour Market, Youth Wage Subsidy and Social Wage.

We have also invited the public sector, private sector, institutions of higher learning and more than 18 youth organisation in province have been invited to Summit.

Issued by: YCL Free State

For more information please contact:
Life Mokone
YCL Free State Provincial Secretary
Cell: 082 529 3224
E-mail: lifemokone@gmail.com