Good evening distinguished guests. Firstly, allow me to introduce myself: I am Edyth Parker, proud member of the SAWIP 2012 team. I had my generation Y membership card stamped on the 7th of September 1992, which confirms me as a current member of the controversial and much debated “youth of South Africa”. You might know our club by our other names: the "lost generation", "the young and the restless", "an appalling waste of human potential" or "a potential source of serious social instability."

You might also know us by the defining features of our club: unemployment and apathy. According to the National Treasury 42% of my South African peers below the age of 30 years are unemployed and not in institutions of education. In a country with a legacy of transformation through youth involvement and activism, these declining statistics frighten me.

Because employment is not only a means to generate an income. My unemployed peers are not being granted a platform to contribute economically to South Africa, which is psychologically, socially and spiritually disempowering. They are granted no social standing, leaving them vulnerable and discouraged from agency. They are not being equipped as independent or innovative citizens, as employment would have moulded them to be survavilists in a market economy. The psycologically disempowered are being moulded as a burden on our government, dependent on social grants and promises from politicians. In ten years the beneficiaries of state social grants have increased from 3.5 million to 15.1 million. Our youth has lost the belief in our power, in the traditional or political sense.

Which results in our second alleged defining characteristic: apathy. We are not engaging in the democratic channels of the country, because our needs are not being prioritised. The registered youth voters fell by 22% before the 2008 elections. Non-participatory democracy leads to a whole generation not being represented in political institutions by the vote. And again, the youth’s voice is not heard.

The portrait I’ve painted of the generation Y club is a bleak one, a confusing and greyscale Goya. Allow me to switch brushes and try painting a new, brighter face for our youth.

I am an undergraduate student at the University of the Western Cape, pursuing a degree in biotechnology. I was raised in a middle class neighbourhood, where all the children ate crustless sandwiches from Spiderman lunch boxes while playing on the well-maintained gym equipment. As I matured, I yearned for more exposure, more influences to assimilate and base my ethos and vision on. So I choose to attend a University historically associated with a demographic different from my upbringing.

It is here I met Aliyah, the beautiful face of a positive and promising youth.

The professor of my biology seminar informed the class that several students had approached him, three weeks before the exams, to tell him they could not fund their own textbooks. These youth were disenfranchised from education by the lack of resources. Aliyah took up their plight. She approached me and a few other students, asking if we would be willing to contribute towards textbooks for our peers.

But she did not merely ask us to hand over money. She mobilised the students in need, together with some of our peers to make bracelets, which we would then sell for profit. The money collected would be used to procure textbooks for the students who assisted in making the bracelets.

You see: Our youth is not necessarily apathetic. It is true that participation in formal politics by the youth is perhaps less frequent than the mass mobilisation of the previous generation, that characterized the breaking point in the Anti-Apartheid struggle. But the youth of SA are very much involved in more informal politics, or the addressing of public socio-economic issues at a community service level. The youth of South Africa is actively committed to addressing the needs in their communities; they have just lost faith in formal politics to meet these immediate needs. The issue that faces our youth is not apathy; it is estrangement from the political system.

But ladies and gentleman, this is not a dead end for youth development. Youth involvement in these unconventional politics of community commitment and service plays a great role in the holistic development of our youth. In their capacity as community servants, youth learn about leadership skills and social connections. Youth also acquire skills that enhance employability such as the recent voluntary construction of houses for the department of human settlements by 150 youths. Those youth are now skilled. They have a chance to procure employment and have thus won the battle against hopelessness

The informal politics of community service enhances the social capital of the youth; it fights of the frustration of feeling powerless in the face of your community’s problems by giving us tangible results. Hopefully the civic knowledge our youth will attain as community servants will also instil in them a civic responsibility that will translate to participation in formal politics as well.

I do not think Aliyah realised the genius of her scheme. At the practical level, she was addressed a socio-economic need by supplying textbooks. But she was also teaching my classmates how they could use entrepreneurship to create opportunities, all the while reminding their peers what our civic responsibilities were. She was even participating in skills transfer with these youths!

Our youth is not apathetic; we’re just unconventional, as all South Africans are. Incomprehensibly high unemployment rates have disempowered the youth economically and politically. So we have sought other means to meet the needs of their communities. I believe encouraging youth volunteer culture in South Africa allows communities to harness the vigour of the youth in solving problems; I believe it gives the youth back their voice and social status. It allows for personal growth and capacity development, enhancing the social capital of a nation of youths that was once described as “unemployable”.

I am extremely proud to be a South African youth, part of a generation that is not lost; we are just finding our feet in our own way.