No sustainability plan for youth empowerment

Speaking during a three-day full council meeting in the village recently, the councillors said the new youth empowerment programme, which targets secondary school leavers and unemployed university graduates comes off poorly, in comparison with Tirelo Sechaba, which was regarded as a pre-requisite for further studies.The councillor for D'kar, Nathaniel Tuahuku, was curious about the fate of young people on internship when the attachment period elapsed. He said the YES programme should have a business component, to train the young people to sustain themselves through funds access after the attachment. Tuahuku also blamed the department of youth for not including street children in the programme. He said the number of street children increased due to the relocation of squatters, which left some of them loitering the streets and some even abandoned schooling as they had nowhere to go when their parents dispersed from the district.