Benguela — Angola's Minister of Youth and Sports, Rui Falcão, presented, on Thursday, to the student and sports class of the province of Benguela, the Strategic Plan for the Integral Development of Youth for 2024-2027 period.
The minister was speaking in the auditorium of the Jean Piaget Higher Polytechnic Institute in Benguela, where he gave a lecture on the theme 'New challenges and perspectives of the Ministry of Youth and Sports'.
The sectors of health, education, technical and professional training, employment and entrepreneurship, social housing, telecommunications and information technologies, public security and citizenship were among the seven anchors or fundamental axes of the plan highlighted by Rui Falcão.
According to the minister, in the field of health, the reactivation and equipping of the counseling centres of the "Youth Houses" and community centres is planned.
According to the minister, one of the major problems that youth associations are struggling with is the lack of space where they can group and define the lines of action.
In view of this, he maintains that one of the priorities of this project is the need to create conditions for youth associations to develop their work.
Then, he explained, it will also be necessary to work with the Ministry of Health in order not only to provide basic services to young people, but to create priority areas in the health network for this fringe of society.
On education, the holder of the Youth and Sports portfolio said that the attribution of merit scholarships to needy young people is one of the priorities in the area of education.
Not least because, he recalled, there are many young people who 'knock on the door' of the Ministry of Youth and Sports to see the dream of their higher education come true, despite the social difficulties they are going through.
Hence, he justified the priority defined for granting merit scholarships to needy young people whose school grades justify it, so that the State can pay for their higher education.
He also says that the expansion of technical-professional training is also taken into account, providing interested young people, even before their higher education, with a profession.
As a novelty, the minister highlighted the State's social support for young people integrated in technical-vocational training centers, a program to be implemented soon.
In the housing sector, Rui Falcão reports on the implementation of the quota reserved for young people in public housing projects, with a focus on the Centralities built in recent years.
Just to give you an idea, the Minister of Youth and Sports estimated that, to date, about 70,000 young people in the country have been directly allocated state social housing.
However, he admits that the process will continue with a new philosophy from now on, which consists of the promotion of directed self-construction, with the support of the banking sector.
In this way, he believes that young people, with initiative and the ability to sustain their projects, will realize the dream of owning a home.
He noted that another task is to ensure compliance with the minimum quota of access for young people to the State's infrastructure land, to complement the new philosophy of directed construction.
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In front of an audience made up mostly of university students, athletes, physical education teachers, former practitioners and youth leaders, the minister also focused on culture as part of the Strategic Plan for the Integral Development of Youth.
He stressed that the goal is to increase the level of free access to books for study, leisure and scientific research by young people.
"We are extending the lines of public libraries to the whole country", he said, for whom students with less financial capacity will be able to access new technologies and knowledge through the Wi-Fi network, which is intended to be accessible to the whole country.
After the lecture, Minister Rui Falcão and his entourage visited some infrastructures in the sector in the province of Benguela, such as the Ombaka National Stadium, the works of the campsite and those of the Youth House, in addition to the pavilions of Matrindindi and Acácias Rubras. JH/CRB/DOJ
