Dr Musawenkosi Saurombe is living her dream trying to inspire new achievements by the youth.

Saurombe, 26, became the youngest female PhD holder in Africa when she attained her doctorate in industrial psychology at the age of 23 from the North-West University three years ago.

Now as a senior lecturer in the faculty of economic and management sciences at the University of Free State, Saurombe is guiding and nurturing future leaders in business.

Yesterday, as the country commemorated the 1976 Soweto youth uprisings, Saurombe called on young people to take control of their lives and not rely too much on the government.

Saurombe told Sowetan that as much as the government should alleviate youth unemployment, young people should also be proactive in shaping their lives.

"It is very important that we hold the government more accountable, especially after Covid-19. We [youth] also need to strike a balance as young people and ask ourselves 'how far do we trust the government with our future; a future that we know they will not be a part of'." So, it is also important that we as young people take initiative." Saurombe encouraged young people to be highly business-minded.

"There are some people with bright business ideas but simply lack the confidence to execute those ideas. The benefit of having a youth demographic in any nation, which is entrepreneurship-orientated, is that it creates employment.

"The government is not the answer to all our problems. There are other issues that need to be addressed at grassroots level. We appreciate the support that government tries to provide to young entrepreneurs so that they too create employment opportunities for other young people, notwithstanding that government should improve its level of support to young entrepreneurs," she said.

Saurombe urged young people to start coming up with solutions for their own problems.

"It is important that we realise the significance of entrepreneurship in our generation. We have already been let down quite a lot by our government. You can only point fingers for so long. We also need to take introspection and have a reality check at ourselves. What is it that we are also doing because it is always easy to point fingers and blame government for all our woes," Saurombe said.

Saurombe, who was born in Zimbabwe but moved to Botswana when she was a month old, also highlighted the importance of supporting black-owned businesses.

"We need to support black businesses as black people and develop a mindset that when I support a black business I am supporting myself. Supporting black businesses as black people is wealth generation and allows us to continue to expand as well."