Pascalinah Kabi
DEMOCRATIC Congress (DC) leader Mathibeli Mokhothu yesterday launched a driving school as part of the ongoing DC Girl Child Programme to empower girls to meaningfully participate in national development.
The driving school is expected to help 31 girls acquire drivers’ licences by November this year. Another 89 girls are expected to compete the driving course and acquire licences by November 2022.
“We are gathered here today (yesterday) to officially launch the DC car driver training programme to capacitate girls who competed for the Miss DC beauty pageant with driving skills,” Mr Mokhothu said.
“We are launching the programme with 11 girls. By the end of November, 31 girls should have acquired drivers’ licences. By November 2022, the target is to have a total of 120 girls who would have acquired drivers’ licences.
“I should remind you that in 2019, the DC kickstarted many programmes to grow the party and among those was the DC Girl Child Programme. The DC is a well-established party which has solid policies in place.
“We have taken a route that is different from any other party. Ours is to empower our members and come up with policies which we can implement when we are in government as we are now.”
Mr Mokhothu said his party was paying school fees for girls who entered the Miss DC beauty pageant. Models who are no longer in school are benefitting from the entrepreneurship component of the programme.
“We also have a life skills component to capacitate girls with the necessary skills to make something out of their lives, to ensure that they are good communicators, that they are self-confident and able to engage in meaningful discussions wherever they are. DC girls must be outstanding wherever they are,” he said.
In the aviation component, the party is planning to enroll three young women and two males into an aviation school by end of November this year.
The DC is also planning to launch a Congress School of Excellency which will offer two-months’ courses on congress ideology, Mr Mokhothu said.
“You realise that local political parties are confused and they are sprout all over the place like mushrooms during the rainy season. We suspect that this is because people are not well trained on the ideologies of their different parties, the mushrooming of political parties is simply based on rivalries and hatred of each other.
“One wakes up tomorrow and forms a party simply because they were not appointed a minister or they were not treated well during a certain feast or failed to be re-elected into the national executive committee.
“These things should not be grounds to form a political party. Parties should not be formed on the basis of conflicts, they should be on the basis of a shared vision and ideology.”
The School of Excellency will therefore, help stabilise local politics to achieve national stability, he said.
He said DC Girl Child programme was influenced by lack of productive participation of the youth in politics.
“The DC decided to come up with youth-orientated programmes to empower and give them a platform to fully participate in politics. The youth must be strong leaders and productively engage in civic participation.
“We also instill the spirit of patriotism and understand that once one is 18 years old, he or she must take up leadership roles and this is why I was nominated to stand for elections at the age of 25.
“The future does not belong to the grey-haired people of this country but belongs to the youth who will live in the future and we must prepare them while still young.
“What belongs to the old is wisdom and their wisdom should be invested in the upcoming generations to have a sustainable country,” Mr Mokhothu said.
