Eden District Municipality’s Executive Mayor, Cllr Wessie Van der Westhuizen on Thursday, 29 January 2015, handed over bursaries to unemployed youth from various areas in the Eden region as well as staff members employed at Eden DM.
The external bursaries were issued to the beneficiaries in the presence of their parents during a special ceremony held at the municipality’s Council Chambers. Executive Deputy Mayor, Cllr Lionel Esau, Municipal Manager, Mr Godfrey Louw, councillors and officials, including Ms Trix Holtzhausen, who is responsible for skills development programmes, also attended the event.
Mayor Van der Westhuizen inspired the students with the story of a young man who had previously performed a chemical experiment. Errors were made during the experiment and many people judged and teased him. Despite this he successfully completed the design. While listening to all the teasing, the young man responded to them and said: “I might have failed a lot of times, but I have failed progressively forward”.
Cllr Lionel Esau also encouraged the students and said: “You need to focus extra on those subjects that you do not like. Work hard and if you fail, try over and over again.”
