Youth and Society to implement Democracy in Young Hands project in Mzuzu and Karonga

By Salome Gangire – Mana.

Youth and Society (Yas) is implementing a one year Democracy in Young Hands Project in Mzuzu City and Karonga District to empower young people to actively participate in democratic governance in the country.

Briefing Mzuzu City Executive Committee Members Friday at Mzuzu City Council Chambers, Yas project officer, Dalitso Magelegele said the project is being implemented with financial support from Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) to the tune of $70,000 (approximately K51.8 million).

He said the project aims to energise young people in the country to take an active role in engaging duty bearers on issues affecting them mainly on governance.

Magelegele said: “We thought it wise to come up with this project which will create critical mass for young people to actively participate and engage the duty bearers,”

He added that by the end of the project, Yas hopes to see changed young people who will be actively participating in politics and engaging duty bearers.

He said improved governance would lead to high quality service delivery in communities and the country as a whole. In Mzuzu, he said the project will be implemented in all the 15 wards of the city.

The project officer said the project will also build capacity of young people in form of information, Knowledge and skills acquisition to do with political participation, human rights governance and advocacy.

“So if they have issues as young people in their communities, they have to advance those issues through various strategies by engaging duty bearers through the platforms that this project is going to facilitate,” he said.

He said the project will establish youth action groups in wards and city youth caucus in Mzuzu which will be an organised and mobilised platform for young people to come up with their issues and then engage duty bearers and council secretariat.

Mzuzu City Council acting chief executive officer, Chrispin Banda welcomed the project saying over 70 percent of the country’s population are youths and as such they need to be empowered.

He said young people need to be in the forefront on issues that affect them.

“I would like to thank Yas for choosing to implement the project in Mzuzu City as we have so many councils in yhe country,” he said.

The projects will run from April 2020 to April 2021.

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