KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu launched the 18th African Renaissance Conference on the 10 May at the Pearls of Umhlanga.

Chair of the African Renaissance organising committee, Prof Sihawu Ngubane, said that the theme to be adopted for this year’s annual festival programme is Entrepreneurs of Africa.  The conference programme
will focus on entrepreneurial development and on providing information regarding education and training
opportunities to scholars and students from school to tertiary levels.

Premier Senzo Mchunu said that the African Renaissance Festival provided an intellectual platform to exchange ideas affecting the Province in order to develop our people. He said, “Through the African Renaissance Festival, we have created a platform allowing entrepreneurs from KZN to interact with entrepreneurs from across the continent and in the Diaspora.” He stressed that growing our economy is a key to our future success and there needs to be a shift in how we do this, so that we can ‘go for space’ â€" the sky is not the limit anymore.”

Premier Mchunu added, “It is the duty of every young person to learn from early childhood until tertiary level and then to continue to upskill themselves in various fields of knowledge. There are many opportunities for young people to learn internationally and they need to take advantage of these platforms to liberate their minds.” He said that many distinguished young Africans have taken up such opportunities and then returned to Africa as leaders.

“The African Renaissance Festival is held in May and provides an opportunity to celebrate our Africanness,” said Premier Senzo Mchunu.  â€œWe as KwaZulu-Natal need to participate and showcase what we are doing to develop ourselves”, he added.

Mr Andrzej Kiepiela, Dean of the European Union Member States in KwaZulu-Natal, emphasized that the African Renaissance Conference programme aims to promote and maximise the opportunities for youth that are available through obtaining college and university bursaries to national and international institutions. He said that an important outcome of the African Renaissance Festival is to be the launch of a dedicated website (www.kznyis.gov.za), which will provide a platform to promote ease of access to bursary funding. Many scholars and students are not aware of the wide variety of bursary funding options that are available to them and many of the available bursaries are not utilised each year. This platform will be launched by the KZN Premier’s Office on the 16 June 2016. The African Renaissance has pledged an additional amount of R15 000 to each of ten students who are successful in obtaining a bursary as an incentive to apply.

Acting Director General Mr Frikkie Brooks concluded that the African Renaissance programme was fully aligned to the goals of the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP). By promoting entrepreneurship, jobs would be created through taking up the opportunities in the KZN economy. In addition, developing the skills of people in the Province is intrinsic to socio-economic growth.  Once job opportunities and skills development programmes are in place then achieving the other pillars of the PGDP will follow. He concluded that the Province, â€œSupports and stands strongly behind the African Renaissance programme in its totality.”

The launch of the African Renaissance Festival was followed by the launch of the last phase of the iconic Pearls of Umhlanga, which has transformed the Umhlanga skyline.  This three billion Rand investment
is one of the largest private sector investments in the eThekwini region over the last ten years.  The Pearls echoes the aims of the African Renaissance Festival â€" that of development and socio economic growth.

“The development has changed what was once a traditional seaside holiday village, and has placed the
area firmly in the modern age; giving Umhlanga’s beachfront a fresh new image with a contemporary, modern feel and its award-winning high rise architecture provides a focal point in the area,” said Premier Mchunu.