By Bida Elly David
The leadership of Youth Association in Yei has demonstrated continuous illegal roadblocks, boarder-checks and heavy tariffs being factors that discouraged youth from operating businesses meant to generate disposable income.
This statement arose during a meeting between Youth leaders and the governor of Central Equatoria State following the New Year celebration in Yei.
Speaking during the meeting, Johnson Poru Hillary the chairperson of Yei Youth Association said that the continuous insecurity on highways have highly affected young people who have been enthusiastic to engage in businesses.
He said that his leadership had a plan to engage youth on capacity building initiatives to strengthen and raise them up with skills that would help them generate money for themselves.
Poru said that the most affected youth were those who retuned back home from the camps following the deadly saga that transpired years ago.
“We presented our work plan before the governor for the next six months. In our discussion with the governor, we deliberated on socio-economic recovery approach that will engage youth to solve unemployment issues. The conflict has affected most of the Youth especially those returning from the camp. The life of those youth who came back from the camps has become a saga for them to build up from,” he said.
Poru said that the only way to reduce insecurity was by initiating enterprises and activities that would keep the young people busy thus crimes will be mitigated.
Moreover, Poru jagged out need for the authority to mitigate the issue of drug abuse by young people in the County since it has been one of the practices that hindered their progress.
“The state government should inject more efforts and resources as well as develop more programs that will engage the youth. Social issues ranging from drugs alcohol and some other behaviors that hinder progress of peacebuilding, self-confidence among the youth should be one of the major sagas to be addressed in Yei,” he said.
Poru pointed out that they have presented an encyclical before the governor which focused on creating awareness on the youth citing that it would be the only transformational method to the youth.
In addition, he revealed that early marriage in the community has been one of the trending issues that needed immediate resolution to mitigate early school drop-out of young girls.
He further said that improvement of road infrastructure annexing the County to Juba and Uganda would be a significant initiative to promote trading activities.
In his part, Emmanuel Adil Anthony promised to invest many efforts to ensure that all the standing blocks among the youth in Yei County are mitigated.