By Seleoe Nonyane
Lesotho Youth Cooperative Alliance (LYCA) members Tebello Tjapela and ‘Makoena Lesia broke into the committee of SADC Youth Cooperative when they were elected as first president and the committee member respectively.
The election took place in Eswatini recently during the inaugural SADC Youth Cooperative Summit.
This achievement comes after Lesotho pulled an amazing performance at the event.
The objective of the summit was for SADC countries to come together and find ways in which the youth can become more involved in cooperatives.
The theme was “Rebuilding sustainable future together, leaving no young person behind.”
This summit brought together SADC countries where its youth are involved in cooperatives so that they could share their achievements. They also dealt in various challenges that they face when working in cooperatives.
It was at this summit where it was agreed that there be established a youth federation that saw Tjapela elected the president of the federation. Lesotho was represented by eight members.
LYCA is a national apex that provides the best services and advocacy for youth cooperatives in Lesotho.
Its mission is to inspire and promote youth cooperatives and build socio-development by working regionally, nationally and internationally.
Cooperatives are organized for the purpose of improving the bargaining power of the individual members and the product or service quality provided by the members. They also aim to reduce the costs incurred during the production process, to provide competition to larger companies with deeper pockets and to expand opportunities for youth development.
Cooperatives allow people to take control of their economic future because they are not owned by shareholders, the economic and social benefits of their activity stay in the communities where they are established. Profits generated are either reinvested in the enterprise or returned to the members.
Lesia noted that the youth needed to use resources to overcome unemployment through job creation.
During a press conference this week Tjapela told the media: “There is not much except for the fact that we need to create jobs through cooperatives. The economy of our country can grow if we create jobs. One of SADC’s objectives is to strengthen the economic development. We learned that youth cooperatives are the business formation which can aid in creating jobs in our countries.”
He continued: “The youth is not involved in cooperatives hence cooperative are normally viewed as elderly business but we want to change this narrative and make cooperatives fashionable among the youth. Our intention is to bring innovation and technology in our cooperatives.”
He observed a lack of good governance within the cooperatives and called for reinventing the management strategies.
