Funky cafes for unemployed youth are still on the cards, despite a launch delay, says Social Development MEC Albert Fritz.
|||Cape Town - Funky cafes for the province’s unemployed youth are still on the cards, despite a launch delay, says Social Development MEC Albert Fritz.
In his budget speech in March, Fritz, pictured, announced that youth cafes - information hubs to help unemployed youngsters – would be set up in malls in 10 areas across the Western Cape by June.
The cafes would be modern, “funky places” where young people could network and access government services, bursaries and job opportunities.
But a month after the deadline, set by Fritz, not one has opened.
Asked about the delay last week, Fritz’s spokeswoman Melany Kuhn said: “The concept of youth cafes is very much still on the table. In fact, at the ‘unconferencing’ event held with the youth on June 16, one of the themes discussed related directly to youth cafes in terms of what young people expect from such a place – the look, the feel, the smell, etc. We wanted to probe what would make them walk through the door, how they would prefer to access it, what they expect to find inside.”
The department was collating the information.
“It is important that the youth cafes not become another white elephant, but rather a place of service delivery that is utilised to the max,” she said. “We will therefore finalise the rollout as quickly as possible, but it will take as long as is necessary to ensure that we package it exactly in the way that would make the youth embrace and identify with it.”
The project is set to be piloted at Vangate Mall for youth from Heideveld, Manenberg, Gugulethu and surrounds, the Promenade Mall for youth from Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha, and other centrally located venues on the West Coast and in the Boland, Overberg and Karoo.
clayton.barnes@inl.co.za
Cape Times