14 Apr 2016

The vice president of Junior Chamber International (JCI) Mr Ryad Subratty has underscored the need for young people to be involved in developing the country.

Addressing a JCI stakeholders’ forum in Jwaneng, Mr Subratty said one of the strategic concepts of JCI was to provide an opportunity to young people to be the best they could be and make a positive change in their communities. He said, as critical thinkers, young people had the power to act and mobilise others with the advantage of instruments such as social media.

He further noted that since the youth were the ones who best understood their problems and challenges, they were in the best position to offer solutions to develop the country.

He said JCI encouraged people to be active citizens who identified problems and came up with solutions.

“One of our strategic positions is that we don’t see problems, we identify them.  Our energy should be used not to blame someone but to solve the problem thereby developing our communities,” he said.

He said JCI members should measure the impact they had on society by the number of projects that had been successfully completed and made an impact on society.

He said JCI was no longer an organisation which existed to ask for donations but rather to create impact.

He noted that in order to transform communities, there was need to engage different stakeholders such as the business community to create sustainable development.

The JCI Jwaneng chapter president Mr McDonald Raditladi noted that as a home to the world’s most valued diamonds, the town was faced with several challenges that affected young people.

He said that they had been attending to some of the challenges to make a positive impact in the community of Jwaneng and other villages.

He said apart from the projects that they had achieved, their annual plan included a career fair for learners as well as a business expo in which well-established business people would inspire young people to realise business success.

He further said that they intended to fodge new partnerships and strive towards self-sustenance.

Morama Junior Secondary School head Ms Mpho Lesego appealed to the JCI local chapter to make inroads into schools to train learners and prepare them for life after school.

She said such training would prepare them to make a living for themselves in the future. “I believe the greatest investment that a country can ever make is investing in its youth, and I believe with the right guidance, these learners can make a big impact on society,” she said.

Ms Lesego further commended JCI for the partnerships it has fodged with schools, especially on the annual career fair.

For his part, Jwaneng deputy mayor Mr Kruger Chepete acknowledged that as a mining town with a population of over 18 000, the town was faced with many challenges that required the intervention of organisations such as the JCI. He called on the JCI to present its ideas to the town leadership and see how they could be executed. ENDS