ADVOCACY CENTRE MARKS INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY 2020 WITH A CALL ON GOVERNMENT AT ALL LEVELS TO PRIORITIZE YOUTH ISSUES
As the World Marks International Youth Day 2020 today, August 12 with the theme “Youth Engagement for Global Action”, Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC) wants the government at all levels in the country to prioritize youth issues.
The youths are said to be leaders of tomorrow but viewing their contribution from global perspectives indicate that their contributions and global actions are already contributing to local, community, state, national and international developments including during this era of COVID-19 pandemic which they are at the forefront of awareness creation and sensitization of people in Nigeria and around the world.
Endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1999 upon the recommendation of the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth; this year’s International Youth Day spotlights youth engagements at the local/community, national and internal levels. As such, we call on governments at the local level in Nigeria to engage the youths on community development ventures including community service, campaigns against cultism and other social vices that derail the youths at the community levels and graduate them into national and global positive or negative youth actions.
At the State level, ADVOCACY CENTRE calls on the Governors in the 36 States including the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja to prioritize youths issues by formulating relevant laws and policies that should be deliberately implemented to empower the youths and prepare them for leadership roles already falling on their shoulders. In Rivers State where youths and human capacity development have not been adequately prioritized since 2015, we called on the State Government to create jobs for the youths through agriculture, employment of environmental marshals promised by the government, commencement of the recruitment of 10,000 youths as teachers approved in 2019 by the State Government, payment of students bursaries, reviving the Rivers State Scholarship Board and Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency to continue improving the welfare of youths and engaging youths in skills acquisition programs to reduce the high rate of unemployment in the state among others.
Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre as a youth and youth-led organization in Nigeria would continue promoting youths’ issues across communities in the Niger Delta and Nigeria in general as well as source and recommend the youths to global opportunities that would enable them join their counterparts from other parts of the world for collective global actions for development. #IYD2020 #31DaysOfYOUth
FYNEFACE DUMNAMENE FYNEFACE,
Environmental Justice Activist, Human Rights Defender and
Executive Director, ADVOCACY CENTRE.
12/08/2020
