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 Herald Reporters

MANY youths yesterday engaged in activities countrywide to mark the Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day, a public holiday set aside to celebrate the contribution of young people to political and socio-economic development.

February 21 was proclaimed a holi­day in 2017 in recognition of the works of the late founding president Robert Mugabe.

The commemorations were held at designated youth centres and were aimed at unveiling Government’s empowerment programmes and providing a platform for youths to showcase their diverse talents.

The day provided an opportunity for youths in the arts and sports sectors to interact with their role models.

The main celebrations were at Mufakose Cultural Centre where Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister Kirsty Coventry was the guest of honour.

Youths who attended engaged in music, sport and traditional dance while some companies took advantage of the day to exhibit their services and products mainly targeted at the youths.

In an interview, Minister Coventry said the commemorations were held to celebrate the immense contribution of the youth.

“Today is most important because we want to recognise young people for their courage, for what they have been trying to do and for what they are trying to do and to recognise that young people are going to lead us into our future and we need to stop talking and we need to be more active.

“And the reason we chose to come to Mufakose is there are programmes like this happening all across our 10 provinces,” she said.

She said her ministry would soon upgrade the centre in Mufakose by adding another multi-purpose court, a handball court and other amenities.

“The goal is to try and resuscitate 40 of these centres across the coun­try by the end of the year. We want these community centres to become the heartbeat of the community and we want to see activities like this on a weekly basis. We are also going to install some computers and we are going to run different courses. We also want the young people from the com­munity to help manage these centres,” Minister Coventry said.

Speaking at the same occasion, Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Deputy Minister Tino Machakaire said as Government they would continue to support and work with all the youths countrywide.

“Today, as you can see, we saw a lot of talent and various activities and as Government we will continue support­ing and working with the youths on developmental issues.

“Some of these activities will help them to stay away from drugs and other nefarious activities,” he said.