GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

that very philosophy and I always share with audiences who look at my size

now compared to my rather skinny demeanour before then, if I was not blessed

with the opportunity of having that ability to have somewhere to go, something

to do and someone to show me how I could achieve my dreams at a time when

society was telling me I could not, I would be outside waiting for you rather than

inside talking to you. For those who think that is subconscious nervousness,

there is my case. Isn’t it wonderful how stereotypical labels and titles are given

and I am a great believer in dispelling whatever is said or prescribed would

happen to you.

Did anyone here get in trouble at school? Don’t all throw your hands up at

once! If you did not, I am talking to the wrong audience and I am in the wrong

place, because any of you who claim you did not nick a sweet from

Woolworths, you did not do doctors and nurses and you did not do all that stuff

you got caught for and all you smart arses who did not get caught, I will talk to

you afterwards, because at the end of the day we all were young and I

sometimes forget the very notion when I am trying to coach my three children

that are 25, 23 and 21, you realise that they are far from children, they are in

your face global citizens, but we have equipped them never, never, ever to be

told that they cannot and what I want to share with you is the art of the

possible. I want to share with you what the journey could look like when policy,

strategies and resources-- By the way, we do not like young people in this

country, or else, unlike the developed nations and developing nations, and I

hate those labels, in developing countries they have ministries for youth,

culture, sport and social affairs. That is a fact. How can we as the fifth richest

nation not have anything remotely looking like a Youth Commission? Why

have we not got a Royal Commission for Young People at a time when it has

never been more needed? I equally believe that they are not a charitable case.

Young people are an investment and they have a social, cultural and economic

return. I do not know where you are expecting to live out your pensions, but I

still expect to live in this green and pleasant land, because my father and

mother came here at the request of Mother Britain to help rebuild this wonderful

green and pleasant land.

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