By Nangamso Mabindla
26 March 2008

UNEMPLOYED youngsters in Buffalo City now have the opportunity to get their driving licences. This is thanks to the Mayoral Youth Driving Licence Project, launched at the East London City Hall on Wednesday, 26 March.

The project is part of the R3-million set aside for projects for young people by Executive Mayor Zintle Peter in her State of the City address in 2007. Councillor Andile Ntoni said that the licence project was a result of the Youth Summit held by the City in November 2007. The aim of the summit was to identify challenges facing young people.

"One of the challenges we discovered at the summit was that many of our young people did not have driving licences. And in this world, in order for a person to find employment, one of the requirements … is having a licence," Ntoni explained.

The Mayoral Youth Driving Licence Project was aimed at helping unemployed youngsters meet the requirements needed to get jobs, he added.

"We have used the R3-million from the Mayoral Fund in various ways; this year we handed bursaries to the first beneficiaries to help young people study at various institutions of higher learning around the country. Now we want to focus on the unemployed youth and help them get licences."

The City's general manager of public participation and special programmes, Thabo Matiwane, said that the municipality wanted to focus on youth-related projects. "We also aim to empower our youth by developing skills in fields like carpentry, electrical skills, computer and other important fields. We aim to do this through weekend classes."

Once these youngsters had received their certificates, the municipality would add them to its database of skilled unemployed youths. "If it is possible we would like to help them get employment or set up their own companies and start doing business," he added.

Speaking about the driving licence project, Matiwane said that it would be spread across the municipal area. "Since we do not have the capacity to offer lessons, we decided to outsource this to driving schools in the city. We have chosen three - one in East London, one in Mdantsane and one in King William's Town."

To ensure that they are ready to be tested for their driving licences, personnel from the City's traffic department will visit the schools and monitor the youngsters' progress.

Participating youngsters will start writing their learners' licences at the beginning of May. They received their K53 Learners' Licence books at the launch of the project.