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Activity
update week ending 30 September 2013
National Youth Development Trust
October 03, 2013
Bulawayo
Full Council
Meeting: The Bulawayo Youth Council (BYC) met to discuss the logistical
arrangements of a planned city clean-up campaign. The BYC intends
to hold a citywide clean-up campaign as a way of providing service
to the Bulawayo communities. The campaign is also aimed at increasing
the visibility of the BYC and mobilising young people to support
the various community initiatives that the youth councillors take
up in their respective communities. The campaign will be held in
partnership with Radio Dialogue to generate hype around the Clean-
up activities and the Bulawayo City Council that is expected to
provide the cleaning equipment.
International
Day of Peace Commemoration: The National Youth Development Trust
in partnership with the Bulawayo Youth Council conducted a meeting
at Mpopoma Hall on the 25th of September 2013 to commemorate the
International day of peace. The commemoration was held under the
theme: “Education for peace” and was aimed at educating
young people on the need to uphold peace in their communities as
it was important for spearheading development. Representatives of
the Mpopoma Residents Association, the Councillor and the Member
of Parliament’s (MP) office were present at the meeting.
Young people
were encouraged to become peace ambassadors as young people have
been used as tools to perpetrate violence. The BYC vice chairperson,
Hope Senderamayi urged young people to refrain from substance abuse
which was identified as one of the catalysts for violent behaviour
amongst young people. As a recommendation the youth council was
tasked to bring more youth programmes to the ward as most young
people were unemployed. These programmes would serve the purpose
of developing the ward whilst occupying young people in order to
desist from partaking in wayward behaviour.
Additionally,
young people were urged to develop life skills that would help them
become better community leaders. The representative of the residents
association emphasised on the need for respect for a community to
function at its best capacity.
Ntabazinduna
Sports for Peace
Tournament: The National Youth Development Trust held a Sports for
Peace festival in Ntabazinduna on Thursday September 26, 2013. Six
(06) soccer and four (04) netball teams participated in the one
day tournament which was aimed at bringing the youths in Ntabazinduna
together to discuss peace building and conflict transformation as
a community regardless of political affiliation. The local leadership,
that is, the councillor and village head, acknowledged the work
done by NYDT in Ntabazinduna. They said that youth voter turnout
increased significantly this year as a result of a campaign by NYDT
that sought to encourage the positive participation of young people
in elections. They also highlighted that there were no cases of
politically motivated violence although young people differed in
political ideology. The young people also expressed gratitude to
NYDT for encouraging them to have political debates without being
violent against each other, saying this had made them more tolerant
of different views.
Sports are a
major form of recreation for youths in Ntabazinduna as the community
has even gone to the extent of creating a league with 16 soccer
teams. The NYDT regularly provides support for the league as it
is a creative way of keeping the unemployed youths from criminal
behaviour. Sports for peace tournaments are used by NYDT to bring
together young people in the communities to engage each other in
a youth friendly environment and promote peaceful coexistence.
Gwanda
Political Parties
Forum: The organisation facilitated a Political Parties Forum at
the Gwanda hotel on Saturday September 28, 2013. The forum was held
under the theme, Setting The Youth Agenda: Priorities For the New
Zimbabwean Cabinet. Representatives from Zapu, MDC-T, and MDC attended
the meeting while the Zanu-PF representative could not make it.
Thabani Nyoni from Bulawayo
Agenda also made recommendations from a civil society perspective.
Some of the key issues identified by young people included the need
for the new government to provide access to education, health care,
employment, amongst other issues. They also highlighted the importance
of evenly distributing the country’s wealth without disadvantaging
other regions. Young people were encouraged to organise themselves
into properly and make use of well researched facts to lobby government
for youth friendly policies and programs.
A contentious
issue at the meeting was the fact that communities are not consulted
before government undertakes projects. They highlighted Joshua Mqabuko
University in Gwanda as an example. Young people said that while
Gwanda was a mining town, there were very few schools in Matabeleland
South offering the science subjects necessary to enroll at the university.
As such, they said the university was located in their areas but
would not service students from their region.
The meeting
provided an opportunity for young people to discuss their own priorities
that cabinet ministers should take note of if they are to be of
service to the youth constituency.
Visit the National
Youth Development Trust fact
sheet
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