From the Top
Letter from the CEO – Siza Mzimela

June is the month when we honour our youth as the foundation and fabric of our society, and for their contribution to the creation of a new South Africa. It is a month when as parents, we provide consistent affection and discipline and foster the development of family privilege.

As we celebrate the development of our youth, it is important to ask: Do we value our young people? If so, how do we show them that? If not, what does that mean – for them and for us?

Tough questions, which are impossible to answer in a few paragraphs, but in short, we can agree on three things:

Early intervention: children are influenced, for good or bad, from the moment of birth. Waiting to begin intervention programmes until kindergarten is waiting too long.

Prevention: fixing problems is less effective and more difficult than preventing them, yet that’s the approach taken by many youth programmes.

Sense of community: positive personal relationships with adult role models make a huge difference in a child’s life, as does a sense of community.

Role models serve as an inspiration, and their dreams can help others build dreams of their own. These role models must show leadership in their communities. They show in their words and their deeds the traditions of wisdom, love respect, bravery, honesty, humility and truth.

We all agree that government policies and programmes alone cannot address youth development. It takes families, civic and religious organisations, businesses and citizens, all of them playing important roles, to change the status quo.

Importantly, the voices of the youth themselves must be heard as we chart new courses and improve our society.

The government can provide tools to enable its people to be fully functioning citizens, but the government cannot create citizens. The responsibility lies in each of us. Unless we help our young people develop a sense of stake in their communities and their futures, there may be neither communities nor future.

We understand that a variety of stressors can interfere with normal parenting and youth development. These include hurried lifestyles, work pressures, poverty, divorce, illness, disability, criminality, and substance and physical abuse.

We know that adults who are extremely stressed, or who lack parenting skills, cannot form the secure bonds necessary for positive youth development.

As we celebrate youth month, we are aware that the youth should play an active part in the economy of the country. That is why they form the backbone of our pilot cadet and cabin crew training and revenue management centres. From here they grow up to take up senior positions within the airline.

We also know that if we are to defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS, our youth must play an important role.

At SAX, we know that the fight against AIDS needs a social revolution. Once more the youth of our country are called upon to play a leading role in a social revolution as they did so heroically in the revolutionary struggle against apartheid.

Our AIDS awareness programme stresses that we need a fundamental change of mindset with regard to the way we speak and behave about sex and sexuality. Boys and men have a particularly critical role in this challenge, changing the chauvinist and demeaning ways sexuality and women were traditionally dealt with.

An important task that we continue to face has to do with strengthening the youth development institutions such as the South African Youth Council, Umsobomvu Youth Fund and the National Youth Commission.

Our youth have a responsibility to work to heal the country and we have a better chance of succeeding than our elders who may have been more intimidated by the abuses of the past.

In practical terms, this means working together to educate people of their responsibility in eradicating racism, eliminating poverty, fighting youth unemployment and creating job, training and entrepreneurship opportunities for the youth.

May our youth continue to imbibe traditions of wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility and truth.

Siza Mzimela