VOA慢速英语 ：南非失业率仍然高企2014-06-09

Fighting South Africa's Jobless Crisis

Unemployment remains high in South Africa. It is one of the greatest problems for the country's youth. So, many young people are starting their own businesses. But not everyone who opens a business is successful.

Job creation was a top goal of the South African government during the first ten years after the end of the policy of racial separation in 1994. However, little progress has been observed in the struggle to create enough jobs.

Officials reported last month that the unemployment rate was 25.2% nationwide. That was up from a rate of 24.1% last year. More than five million South Africans are unemployed. If the people who stopped looking for work were included in the report, the rate would be 35.1%.

Twenty-four year old Sibusiso Ngcobr says he can no longer wait for the government to create a job for him.

"It's hard to find a job. You can't sit and maybe your brains would blast out of your mind, because, like, you can't sit and do nothing. You can't wait, I have to eat, I have brothers to support, I have a family to feed."

Instead, he and other South Africans like him are creating their own companies. But he says the government's attempts to help small-business owners like him -- people with just a basic education -- are hurt by too many rules.

"Coming back from a previously-disadvantaged background, you don't have security, your house is just a small house, and then you go to the bank -- you have a great, brilliant idea, they say they want surety, they want collateral -- what do you have? You have nothing. You can't say ‘I have got my high school diploma, here is it -- you can't say that. So you actually have to start from the grassroots."

Beginning from "grassroots" is what Ludwick Marishane did. As a young man, he started businesses in the northern province of Limpopo -- a place with high levels of poverty. Some of his businesses failed.

But one day, as he and a friend were lying in the sun, he had an idea. His friend did not want to wash up, and wondered why no one had created a product to help those who could not, or did not want to, bathe. A few years later, with little money, Ludwick Marishane created "Dry Bath Gel." It saves time for some, and helps those who do not have use of clean water themselves.

"I scraped (together) whatever, whatever resource(s) I had available. I didn't have a computer or resources like that so I would have to use the local computer café, or internet café, where it cost me about $2 an hour to use the internet in all day. And my allowance per week was about five dollars -- that was my pocket money and lunch money."

In his last year of high school, he wrote an 8,000-word business plan on a simple telephone, and sent it to 80 investors. But none of them would agree to risk their money on a young inventor with a product that they believed mostly helped poor people. So he began looking in other places.

"I looked at different sources -- the different banking loans and the different development loans that government had made available in South Africa for small businesses, and I was unsuccessful -- part of it was the red tape and the amount of bureaucracy involved in trying to access those types of funds and at the same time my business wasn't a bankable idea."

So he entered the product into competitions, and slowly gained investors. Now, Mr. Marishane holds legal rights to his invention. In fact, he is the youngest patent-holder in South Africa.

词汇解析

remains

难度：5星基本词汇，属常用1000词

英汉解释

n.剩余物;遗迹;遗体

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

After the wheat crop has been gathered, many farmers burn the remains and plough the ash into the soil, so as to enrich it.

小麦收割完成后，农夫们把剩余物烧掉，然后用犁把灰埋入地里，使土地更肥沃。

Choi's remains true today for cremation.

崔真实的遗体今天进行火葬。

policy

难度：5星基本词汇，属常用1000词

英汉解释

n.政策;方针

n.保险单

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

This latest incident may be the lever needed to change government policy.

最近的事件或许可以作为迫使政府改变政策所需的手段。

It's the company's policy to sacrifice short-term profits for the sake of long-term growth.

为长期发展而牺牲短期利润是公司的方针。

racial

难度：3星常用词汇，属常用6000词

英汉解释

adj.种族的;人种的

参考例句

用作形容词 (adj.)

We should not have racial discrimination.

我们不该有种族歧视。

journalist

难度：1星畅通词汇，属常用20000词

英汉解释

n.记者;新闻工作者

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

This journalist's works are popular among young people.

这位新闻记者的著作很受年轻人的欢迎。

His passport says he is a journalist.

他的护照说他是一个新闻工作者。

progress

难度：3星常用词汇，属常用6000词

英汉解释

n.进步;发展;前进

v.进步;发展;缓速前进;促进

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

They made slow progress towards the mountaintop.

他们向山顶缓慢地前进。

用作动词 (v.)

We are meeting again tomorrow to try and progress the matter.

我们打算明天再见面，试着推动这件事情的发展。

blast

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

n.爆炸;巨响;一阵(强风);严厉的批评;<美俚>愉快的经历

v.爆破;摧毁;发出巨响;用力撞击;批评

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

27 school children were injured in the blast.

27名学龄儿童在爆炸中受了伤。

用作动词 (v.)

A massive car bomb blasted the police headquarters.

一个巨大的汽车炸弹在警局总部爆炸。

brilliant

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

adj.卓越的;灿烂的;美妙的;杰出的;才华横溢的

n.宝石

参考例句

用作形容词 (adj.)

Memory is like a living book whose brilliant fragments worth reading a hundred times in my life.

回忆就像是一本生动的书,生活中那些精彩的片段令我百读不厌。

The novel is considered a brilliant performance.

这部小说被认为是出色的佳作。

province

难度：4星核心词汇，属常用3000词

英汉解释

n.省

参考例句

用作名词 (n.)

British Columbia is a province of Canada.

不列颠哥伦比亚是加拿大的一个剩

Hangzhou is the capital city of Zhejiang Province.

杭州是浙江的省会城市。