In keeping with its mission ‘To see a democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe, where young people are empowered and enjoy sustainable livelihoods, based on informed participation and active citizenship’ the Forum embarked on and continued to strengthen a number of initiatives, which will continue through 2012.
These include:
Information Generation and Dissemination – access to correct and unbiased information as a key link to enhancing positive youth participation in community and national processes. Young people shy away from processes because they lack critical information pertaining to why or how they ought to participate. This is exacerbated by deliberate misinformation by various political players. In bridging this gap, the Forum will continue to generate and disseminate information on a wide range of youth-focused issues.
Civic Education – involves striving to ensure that the youth, especially those in marginalized communities, are educated on various aspects of civic life so as to enhance their participation from an informed position. Key areas of intervention in this regard include the policy dialogue process as well as political decision-making.
The current ‘1 Million New Voters Campaign’ is one such initiative through which the Forum plans to bridge the conspicuous gap in young people’s participation in the governance process by encouraging youths to register as voters.
Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Livelihoods – a key driver of the hopeless situation many young people find themselves in due to lack of entrepreneurial opportunities and a failing economy. The Forum has been able to link young people to other stakeholders from where they can access lines of credit for self-help
Projects – including the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenization and
Empowerment that has a revolving fund. 2011 saw a significant amount of funds being committed by various corporate stakeholders for youth development. – Contact details: youthforumpublcity@gmail.com; www.youthforumzim.org
+263 773 014 693, +263 773 850862
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