Youth Focus: DA's Yusuf Cassim on leadership, opportunities in SA

A week leading up to Youth Day, 16 June, ECR Newswatch speaks to young leaders, influencers, and youth organisations on the state of South Africa, leadership and how the young generation can be active contributors to the aforementioned. 

This year's Youth Day will be the 41st anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising - an historical event that challenged and saw the end of the oppression of Africans through inferior education.

Today, there are other challenges facing the youth. Cassim says one of these is successfully creating job opportunities, now and within the next ten years. 

ALSO READ: HEAIDS Conference: Calls for inclusion of youth, LGBTI community

"We're going to lose an entire generation. We have 15-million young people who are going to join the ranks of job seekers in this country over the next decade. How we deal with that crisis, added to the over nine million unemployed South Africans, is going to define South Africa and our futures collectively," he says.

He says despite this, young people are finding prominent leadership positions to express their views. 

Cassim shares thoughts on how this generation has come to consciously contribute to creating opportunities for themselves.  

"Young people need to find expression at the forefront - not just politically - whether it's in business, or within the civil society space. My own experience with this is - where young people have found a space to be expressive with the energy, skills and desire, they have been able to provide competence and cutting edge service than what would have been expected," he says. 

ALSO READ: KZN youngsters discuss empowering women during national youth dialogue

He says this decisive attitude has been seen in the number of young leaders contesting for positions within local council during last year's Local Government Elections, for instance. 

"We've never seen as many young people not just apply to be councillor candidates but become local government councillors - it was historic. We had one councillor in a rural municipality in the Eastern Cape that was inducted at the age of 18. Young people find it easier to find prominence as the tide starts to turn as young people have more energy, better skills and are able to bring in new ideas," he adds. 

This is also telling of the youth turnout in last year's polls - 6.3 million voters were registered to vote out of the eligible youth voting population of 11.8 million, with an approximate of 58% voter turnout.

Cassim shares more insights with Newswatch's Portia Cele. Listen below.