In both South Africa and Canada, the government’s financial year begins on April 1st. (No, really, it does!) That is not far away now. This may have been one factor in our long “waiting game” for funding to replenish…
We learned this week that C4L has been short-listed for the tender bid it submitted on November 15th – to offer 50 youth Business Practice accredited training (at Level 1). The Services SETA arrives here on Friday morning at 9:30 to do the site inspection.
The budget includes a stipend for each learner during the 12 months of studying. They spend 1 week every month at C4L campus then 3 weeks in the community. On campus, they will be led by the trainers of the appointed Training Provider. In their practicums, they will be supervised and supported by our LSU team, helping them to "incubate" their enterprises.
Later the same morning, another government donor, the Department of Social Development arrives at 11:30. C4L is also competing for a contract to deliver training required by the Thogomelo programme. This comprises a bundle of NGOs and CBOs providing HIV and AIDS-related counseling.
Prayer request
Let’s ask that C4L can win both of these bids.
Deeper reflections
Merlin Emmanuel wrote the words in italics in his August 2011 Riots, Recession and Resistance statement… thanks to a good buddy for sharing these with me in response to the last C4L Bulletin. I am interjecting some South Africa commentary…
They (youths) do care about the bleak realities but will not protest peacefully as they have seen that many of our peaceful protests achieve little. Society has taught them that violence is the answer and the government reinforces their sentiments every day with their international policies.
Ouch!
The youth are disillusioned with society and have no hope, no future, no love and no respect. They have turned inwards and formed their own leadership, disregarding those who should be fighting for their interests, yet who have failed them so miserably.
Enter Julius Malema, renegade leader of the ANC’s Youth League.
We are so quick to condemn these youths but fail to look at the underlying factors that would produce such aggression.
These youths are not aliens, they are our children. They did not fall from spaceships or suddenly become menaces to society. This (aggression) was instilled into them by us and so we must take great responsibility as leaders who don’t lead, teachers that don’t teach, preachers that don’t preach and parents that often fail to lead by example.
Ouch again!
Indeed it is very easy to point the finger but let’s have a closer look at things from a teenage perspective.
We call them criminals and they look at the bankers.
We call them violent murderers and they look at the police.
We say they are void of morals and integrity and they look at the politicians.
We talk of leading by example and often they look at their parents.
We say they are devoid of moral integrity, but do we practice what we preach? NO!
Do our children know this? YES!
So this is the main reason for why there is a disconnect between our youth and society. Because they know we are hypocrites on every level.
Was this written about London or South Africa?
Babies are not born with Nike trainers, flat screens and bling bling with an alarming aptitude for violence! They are created and it is us who endorse their ‘get what you can when you can' mentality.
In South Africa we don’t have Yuppies, because the Young are side-lined and poor. But we do have Buppies (black urban professionals) and they are as much a part of the problem as a part of the solution. This is what COSATU leader Vavi means when he says that government leaders have “forgotten their roots”
Be warned, the system has been waiting for a chance like this to impose draconian legislation that will affect our human rights, our civil liberties and privacy forever.
New legislation in South Africa is gonna make the free press compete with rhinos for endangered status. (Sidebar: More that one a day loss on the rhino front in 2012 so far.)
The reality is our children now interact more with machines than they do with human beings and so they build their perception of reality on what we have taught them on a variety of platforms.
The new frontier of uncensored cyberspace, Internet brides, phone sex, simulation war games
Each day we feed our children a toxic diet of vanity, violence, profanity, overt sexuality and materialism. So why are we so alarmed when we see youth values eroding and regressing at such an alarming rate?
People are saying that Zuma did not stand up when Malema first mis-spoke himself in public, by saying that he would “kill for Zuma”. Now Zuma is reaping the whirlwind.
‘As a man thinketh, so is he.’ (Proverbs 23:7)
South Africa is caught in a transition from rural to urban, from agrarian to industrial, from traditional to modern, from autocratic to democratic… that is very much like the background to the “Dirty 30s” in America. Demographically, though, half the population of America in 1933 was not under 18 years of age. That’s the scenario here. Dirt poor and under-age.
