By Aweye Teddy Onam
Agency for Humanitarian Assistance and Development (AHD) on Monday, organized Trainers of Trainees (ToT) civic education for youth in South Sudan.
The workshop in Juba, aimed at empowering the youths to participation in constitution-making and beyond elections.
Beneficiaries are expected to train other young people on constructive civic engagement.
The training is also meant to instill a spirit of hard work, innovation, making the youth to become great thinkers and change agents.
The workshop aims to educate youths about their desired issues and ensure their voices are heard in civic processes.
Martin Kwori, the executive director of AHD, said the youth should be encouraged and inspired to identify and address community concerns that benefit the common good, non-violently through political and non-political processes.
“We would like young people to take upon themselves the constitution-making process and ensure that they do research and shape the overall constitution of South Sudan for their own benefit as young people,” he said.
Mr. Kwori believes that the constitution is for the youth, as they constitute over 72% of the population.
Sally Riak, a participants and fourth-year student at the University of Juba, said the workshop enlightened her of civic spaces and how to participate in decision-making.
“This training has helped us get to know or be more aware of how we can take part in decision-making in South Sudan and how we can also take part in the constitution-making process as young people,” she said.
Riak now plans to spread the information through her networks and circle to other universities.
Rojas Luis Ramadan, the executive director of Rights for All organization, said that youth leaders in South Sudan are meant to discuss and formulate tactics and strategies to help them tackle community problems, such as the upcoming constitution meeting process.
He stressed the importance of understanding the process and engaging positively, as the process has not yet started.
“It’s very important for us as a youth because this is a permanent constitution. So, we have to come and sit down and make sure that we understand all these points and agree that because the process has not started, we have to engage positively. And for us who are here, we know about this process, but others don’t know about it,” Mr. Luis said.
“We have to go and inform them about these issues so that they can be united and choose the topics that they want to address and they want it to be reflected in the upcoming permanent constitution of South.”