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Activity update
National Youth Development Trust
June 03 2013

Bulawayo

Young Women’s Study Circle: The National Youth Development Trust held a Young Women’s Study Circle with participants drawn from Cowdray Park and Luveve in Bulawayo. The meeting was held with the aim of providing a platform for young women to discuss social, economic and political issues that affect them in their communities while collectively suggesting solutions to the issues. Some of the issues discussed were communication between young women and their parents, issues of maternal and other healthcare services, political marginalization, unemployment and lack of income amongst other issues.

Of major significance was the fact that the young women agreed to participate in key national issues effectively so that their voice is also heard. They agreed to vote for women, who they said would best represent their needs, emphasising the importance of having one common goal as women. The young women also encouraged the NYDT to continue providing such platforms as they helped them share experiences and develop unity of purpose amongst themselves. They also urged the organisation to facilitate more intergenerational dialogues as these would also help strengthen the relationships between older and younger women.

The young women’s study circle is a part of the breaking the culture of silence project and aims at enhancing the voice of young women in the national socio-economic and political discourse by providing them safe spaces in which to clearly articulate their issues.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Training: The National Youth Development Trust held an ICT training for some of the Bulawayo Youth Councillors in an effort to enhance their capacity to utilize information technology in their development work. The training focused on introducing the participants to the use of the computers, specifically to the Microsoft Windows Operating System and the Internet, citizen journalism and blogging as a well as stimulating their interest in ways of improving their information sharing methods by introducing them to different functions of social networks.

Some of the participants were assisted in creating email addresses and Facebook accounts as they were using the internet for the first time during the training. The training workshop was practical and highly participatory and hence offered the participants an opportunity to experience using the computers on their own. Given the limited time, participants were encouraged to frequently visit the NYDT information centre that offers them free access to computers and the internet so that they may further their computer utilization skills.

The participants were also encouraged to stay alert on what is transpiring in their communities so that they can communicate the issues with other people through the internet with the help of the NYDT. It is the hope of the NYDT that eventually these young people will be able to fully utilize the internet, particularly social networks to mobilize and communicate with other young people.

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