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Ways of involving youths in development
2005-05-17 08:16:33
By Guardian Correspondent
Many youths are ignorant of principles of democracy and effective parliamentary representation in their constituencies.
They fail to participate effectively and knowledgeably on their civil rights constitutionally and how to discern whether they are taken care of in policy formulations and laws being enacted in the country.
Youths are banked upon as a fountain of new ideas in addition to being energetic, active and revolutionary oriented for the betterment of the nation.
They are at times abandoned or not effectively enabled to play their role. It is not only an unfortunate situation but also something that should be avoided by seeing to it that every thing possible is done to let them play an effective role in the society.
Definitely apart from youths being the most energetic group in society, they are also a spring of new ideas once well educated and adequately exposed to various schools of thought through education.
If the society in turn abandons them, they remain as goods that have no customers because of not being effectively and knowledgeably involved in matters of national interest.
For instance, it is held that more often than not youth are not presently effectively involved in policy formulations, the and in the process of enacting law democratically hence making them remain like a blunt knife.
It is, as it were, not a privilege but their civil right to be involved, well educated and adequately facilitated with tools for deploying their various talents to the full possible capacity.
They have to be listened to and assisted effectively on how to solve a number of problems in the society and including avoiding to fall pray to HIV/Aids.
It partly because of this that a non-governmental organization –TAYOA- that deals with youth matters resolved to come up with a special youth in Parliament project to acquaint them with canons of parliamentarians roles in the democratic dispensation of issues right from the grass roots to national level, civil constitutional rights and civic education.
The project that started in 2002 aims at enlightening the youths to be conversant with their indispensable role in participating to effecting qualitative changes in local councils and Parliament through elected representatives at the various levels of decision making and law enacting processes.
The projects targets at achieving that noble goal as one way towards building a strong nation of able and far-sighted youth who are adequately and effectively conversant with their civic roles and effective implementation of what falls within their juridical mandate constitutionally.
It is also anticipated that effective implementation of the project may contribute immensely to building strong base in the form of well enabled and enlightened youth ready to take up leadership in low and higher avenues of the nation being conversant with the right cultural and democratic built base.
As of now since the project started in 2002, a total of 2,800 have benefited from the project nationally.
Partly as a result of the good work achieved in the 2002 to 2004 phase, stakeholders have facilitated for another 2005 to 2007 phase funded by Civil Society Foundation (CSF.
According to the TAYOA Director,Peter Masika during the 2002 = 2004 phase of the project, youth have attended parliamentary sessions to get the on-spot exposure on how Members of Parliament execute their roles through debates and parliamentary committee sessions, civic education and matters pertaining to youth education, human rights and good governance.
Also the youth were effectively enabled to participate on nation-wide drive against HIV/Aids, unemployment and how to alleviate poverty.
On long term plans, Masika says efforts are to be made to enable the coming generation have the necessary vision for sustaining youth enlightenment and effective community-based participation in various socio-economic and political matters from local to national level.
He stresses that youth enlightenment and other capacity building measures for the youths are not an end in themselves but to actualize the gained knowledge and capacity to effect qualitative changes for national interest at all levels of the society cutting across all gender circles.
All this, according to Masika, can be reached within a period of three to five years.
On the relationship between the youths and Members of Parliament, government leaders and functionaries at various levels from local government councils upwards, he said it would streamline and simplify decision making process and contribute significantly in poverty reduction.
He said the project would enable the youth to make follow ups on the implementation and funds expenditure in the society coming up with various proposals on effective poverty reduction.
He said the project would be a development oriented catalyst giving opportunity to Members of Parliament to consult youth and other civil society views on different multi-sectoral issues cutting across various sectors such as education, health and agriculture starting in eighteen months time after the project takes off.
It is also banked upon to stimulate increase of community-based societies making effective follow ups on the various initiatives in the society for accelerate change for improvement in the society in different levels.
Effective enhancement of youth representation, transparence, accountability and implementation are some of the outcomes of the project initiatives, he said.
“We expect to increase the number of MPs and youth representation in Parliament, local government and villages from the year 2015 onwards.
Emphatically stressed too was the need to adhere to democratic pillars of government at local and national levels with a parliament that is close to the people, good governance and respect and adherence to human rights.
The Dar es Salaam City Council in collaboration with the three City Municipalities have a strategy of enabling youths to know their civic rights and come up with ways on how to solve problems facing them.
The Dar es Salaam Deputy Mayor Hanzuluni Mungula said soon they are to establish youth councils as one of the ways of evaluating youth contribution.
The other goal he said would be to strengthen good governance and effective participation.
He said the councils formation is in its final stages. The councils, according to the Deputy Mayor, will have youths of ages of between 14 and 24 having their own mayors and counselors too.
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