US ambassador Lana Marks takes a short left in Soweto
The ambassador has played a lot of leadership roles in her career and she is very keen on using her experience to empower South African women.
The United State ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks wants to fight youth unemployment and push for women’s empowerment.
These form part of her long list of goals she wants to achieve during her term of office. The newly appointed ambassador visited Soweto last week to interact with the locals, especially young people and upcoming entrepreneurs.
“There are three goals that I want to start with. To increase trade between the United States and South Africa. I want to work on youth unemployment and women’s empowerment.
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“We also want to get the HIV pandemic under control this year through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) programme,” said ambassador Marks highlighting some of her goals.
The ambassador kicked off her visit to Soweto with a wreath laying at the Hector Pieterson memorial in Orlando West before meeting up with women entrepreneurs and various community organisations.
Being an entrepreneur and diplomat, Marks brings with her a wealth of knowledge and experience which she hopes to impart to Sowetans especially young people.
Lana Marks at the Hector Peterson Memorial.
She said, “I feel that having been an entrepreneur myself who started my small business and grew it to a global brand, I’m going to work very hard to address these issues and encourage women in this country in all aspects of entrepreneurship and all other issues including gender based violence.”
The ambassador has played a lot of leadership roles in her career and she is very keen on using her experience to empower South African women.
She also touched on the issue of health which is one of her top priorities. The United States continues with its desire to assist South Africa fight HIV and Aids through the PEPFAR programme which was founded by resident George W Bush.
“We are working very hard together with the South African government on all aspects of this. We’ve just had the funding approved for 2020 which is good news,” said Marks “We feel that if we can get accountability and work very hard with epidemic control in 2020 we can work on other issues of health and women’s health in general.”
The ambassador feels that visiting Soweto was a good start and she hopes to visit as many places as possible so that she can interact with South Africans from all walks of life.
She ended by encouraging young people to take their education serious and visit American corners like the Rosa Parks Library for access to information.
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