Democratic Alliance Youth Launches "Face of Youth Unemployment" Campaign

Note to editors: This statement was released at an event on the Queen Elizabeth Bridge in Johannesburg underneath the DA Youth's ‘Youth Wage Subsidy Now' billboard during which the photographs of 400 unemployed young South Africans were revealed, representing the over 400 000 job benefits that could be created for young South Africans by the Youth Wage Subsidy. Photos are available upon request.

Today the DA Youth is launching our ‘Face of Youth Unemployment' in South Africa campaign. The aim of this initiative is to put a human face to the plight of young unemployed South Africans. The 400 young people seen here today, each representing a 1000 youths that could benefit from the Youth Wage Subsidy, have pledged their support to the programme and call for its immediate implementation.

These are the faces and the real stories behind our unemployment statistics. They are the youth with an education but no jobs. They are the youth who feel hopeless and are seeking a better life. They are the youth who can't afford a tertiary education and desperately need some form of basic work experience.  They need for someone to take a chance on them and give them an opportunity to lift themselves out of the poverty cycle. People like 25 year old Thulani Dlamini, who matriculated in 2007 and has been unemployed since, or 20 year old Zwelakhe Mgadi who is currently studying electrical engineering at an FET college and worries that he will not get a job. 

The Youth Wage Subsidy could offer them such an opportunity.

With R5 billion already set aside by National Treasury for this initiative, all that stands between these young people and a job opportunity is COSATU. The DA will continue to advocate for this subsidy as it stands to create more than 400 000 jobs benefits for young South Africans. COSATU's on-going anti-subsidy rhetoric is completely baseless and we call on all South Africans to join us in calling for the immediate implementation of this initiative. Just this week, a TNS survey found that more than 70% of young South Africans support the Youth Wage Subsidy.

As a part of the ‘Face of Youth Unemployment' campaign being launched today, the DA Youth will be collecting photographs of unemployed young South Africans from around the country. As well as featuring these images at events, we will post them in our ‘Face of Youth Unemployment' Album on the Democratic Alliance Youth Facebook Page. We also urge unemployed young South Africans to post a photo of themselves along with their name, age and length of unemployment on our Facebook Page Wall or send them to [email protected].

Every day between today and Youth Day on June 16 the face of a young unemployed South African will be featured on our twitter handle, @DA_Youth, with the hash tag #FaceOfYouthUnemployment.

Statement issued by Makashule Gana, DA Federal Youth Leader, May 24 2012

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