By Saul Molobi and Maphoka Likotsi
The National Youth Job Summit has identified; Culture and Creative Industry, Gender-Based Violence, Politics and Education, Manufacturing, Tourism, Information Communication Technology (ICT), Youth in Politics as the concerns affecting youth employment.
The report follows the three-day National Youth Job Summit that was recently organised by the Ministry of Gender and Youth, Sports and Recreation, Youth Task Team in collaboration with the Prime Minister’s Office Delivery Unit.
Presenting the report, the Secretary of the Youth Task Team, Tsepo Masupha, said the report shows the Gender-Based Violence as a concern for smooth recruitment of youth in the job market, singling out sexual harassment as rampant in this regard hence youth appeal for Labour Act to protect people/ employees against this harassment at workplace beyond Human Resource (HR) System.
Speaking about Culture and Creative Industry, Tsepo said youth are concerned that current youth centres need to be transformed so that they become functional and to accommodate creative industries, adding that these centres should be managed by youth.
Again, manufacturing is a concern for youth as they maintain that there is a lack of access to infrastructure and space of resource centre, high production costs, lack of raw materials, lack of access to factors of production such as machinery and finance.
The report further shows concerns that youth, as well as those with disabilities, are not represented in Parliament.
Regarding the issue of Youth in Politics, Tsepo said the Department of Youth has been recommended to be independent so that it focuses on issues relating to youth only, adding that the National Youth Council structure should be revised while the Youth Council should also be independent.
In further giving a public face to youth affairs in Lesotho, Jambo Africa Online is profiling Mamarch Sennane, a youth activist in the mountain kingdom.
He said youth believe that there is a need for youth education on tourism and digitalisation of tourism areas and that database for all places with tourism potential is vital as well as the collective stakeholder’s engagement on tourism attractions awareness of tourism and to preserve identified tourism attractions.
Talking about Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Mr. Masupha said the report shows youth believe that education and programmes should be examined, e-government solutions should be led by youth and time-to-time consultations be considered.
Meanwhile, the Summit has made recommendations which are believed could improve the state of youth unemployment country-wide and these include; getting rid of red tapes for youth, granting trade licences with demanding ground lease and that business should be incubated before they can be managed or given to the owners.
The National Youth Job Summit phase 1 is expected to be followed by phase two and three next year.
A public face for youth entrepreneurship
In giving a public face to youth affairs in Lesotho, Jambo Africa Online spoke to an ardent advocate for youth socio-economic empowerment, Mamarch Sennane. As the youth mantra goes, “nothing about us, without us.” The sassy and conscientious Mamarch obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Social Work degree in 2015 from the National University of Lesotho. She then started her career at Caritas Lesotho where she stayed for three years – from 2016 to 2019 – as a Field Supervisor under Determined, Resilient, Empowered, Aids-Free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) project. The project consisted of three interventions – namely; parenting programme, social assets building programme, and the SILC (Savings, Internal and Lending Communities).
“This is where I displayed my public speaking skills as I successfully sensitized different communities about the project. I further productively recruited 81 community agents and trained them about project interventions. Through collaboration with different stakeholders, I successfully referred projects beneficiaries for HIV Testing Services (HTS). Out of my dedication and concern for the wellbeing of the people, I offered my psychosocial support to beneficiaries who were going through life traumatic experiences. In addition, I effectively strengthened the relationships between children and their parents through parenting program, thus I promoted open communication and a sense of trust between children and their parents.
“Through SILC program, I managed to train and mentor children and their parents about effective ways of saving the little money they had for the future, I further assist them in establishing Income Generating Activities (IGAs) with the little money they had saved so that they could make ends meet. I went through all these efforts for my clients as I was determined to instil confidence in them and tap their hidden potentials so that they could become their strongest selves and do away with dependency and transit to independency.”
In 2020, she joined SOS Children’s Villages Lesotho as a Project Officer under Youth Empowerment and Entrepreneurship Training (YEET) project for two years. “There I successfully facilitated the implementation of three project interventions namely: Vocational Training, Business Management and Life Skills. I enrolled 500 school dropout youth into Vocational Training (VT) with the idea of instilling employable vocational skills in them to employ themselves post completion of their training curricular. The aim was for the youth to acquire skills they could use to generate small income to provide for their families and themselves since they had to drop out of school due to their families’ financial crisis. I then successfully enrolled the same 500 beneficiaries into Business Management program, which was mandatory for all VT beneficiaries, to provide them with the skills on how to operate and manage their businesses post completion of their VT. I also managed to link the youth with potential employers to display different vocation skills they have acquired and further provided start-up kits to those who chose to employ themselves.
“As a dedicated professional who is open to challenges and learn new things, I volunteered myself to lead the implementation of one of the three project interventions; Life Skills Program, this was after the struggles the organization went through trying to find the service provider for the program. I saw this as a valuable opportunity to employ my knowledge and enhance my professionalism as I advised the organization to stop looking for an external service provider and volunteered to offer the services as I portrayed all the skills and knowledge needed for a service provider. I thereafter recruited, trained and supervised six Life Skills Facilitators and enrolled 2500 beneficiaries under the program. I successfully provided them with the essential life skills to adapt positive behaviour that enabled them to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. My volunteerism decision thus enhanced my management and accountability skills and in return heightened my professional development.
“I am pleased to mention that the organization rewarded me with a short course in Agile Project Management offered by the University of Cape Town. The course advanced my project management skills as it offered me different approaches to managing projects. The course further instilled adaptive mind as the world we are living in is rapidly changing and requires adaptive persons, for this, I am adaptive, open to new challenges and always determined to learn new things.”
