Pretoria - The Southern African Youth Movement has said it is looking to empower and rehabilitate youth in Pretoria as part of its Youth Month activities.
Given the statistics of substance abuse in the country and the continued rise in unemployment, more organisations are working with young people that have fallen into the trap of drug abuse.
The movement will be holding two events at Rama City near Ga-Rankuwa, including a choir competition and a soccer and netball tournament on June 16 and 18 respectively.
Spokesperson Tebogo Manganye said the movement had partnered with the Kingdom Apostolic Church to celebrate the lives of street children and youngsters who were once drug abusers but who received help from the church to become clean.
“They are now members of the church and participating in positive programmes. The event will be in a form of gospel music competition and we invited other church choirs to be part of it. Our vision is to have a drug rehabilitation centre built in Rama City in partnership with the City of Tshwane’s human settlement department.
“The church is currently assisting in rehabilitating drug users and offering them help with anything that they need. Those who have been rehabilitated, they are coming from all over Pretoria.”
Manganye said the movement hoped to get some of the youngsters opportunities in public programmes such as the Expanded Public Works Programme and skills development programmes.
“We are looking into an agricultural project in the area, we are also looking into building a complex and employing people from the community. We are celebrating the youth under the umbrella of sports.
“We have ambassadors such as musician Fifi Cooper and actor Israel Matseke Zulu, who will be coaches on the day.
“They are our ambassadors because they bring the youth to us and the youth looks up to them.
“Their job is to make sure that they bring the youth closer to our programmes.”
Cooper will be a netball coach while Zulu will be a soccer coach.
The City of Tshwane, Rama City, Lesotho and Southern African Youth Movement teams will compete in top-four tournaments in soccer and netball.
Winners of the soccer tournament will take home a donated R10 000 prize, while winners of the netball will take home a donated R7 500 with medals and trophies.
There will be a gala dinner at which the Southern African Youth Movement, Rama City, and City of Tshwane will be elaborating on programmes that they will be working on, including the drug rehabilitation centre.
Pretoria News