Young people’s opinions and interests are rarely recognized, considered or represented at decision-making level, which limits their involvement in advocacy.
In order to enhance the advocacy skills of youth representatives and youth oriented CSOs, Never Again Rwanda (NAR) under the Inzira Nziza project organized a training, which was attended by 125 participants from five different districts (Nyamagabe, Gisagara, Huye, Nyabihu, and Ngororero).
This training began on 16th September 2019 in Huye District and aimed to establish functional advocacy networks for engagement with local decision-makers. The end goal of this training was to strengthen young people’s advocacy skills and to enable them to become more active in identifying and advocating for issues affecting youth.
As he introduced the training and welcome participants, NAR’s Fred Musiime emphasized that effective advocacy requires a holistic approach and a thorough implementation plan:
“At the on-set of advocacy, it is important to develop an implementation plan that identifies activities, tasks, responsible persons, time frame and needed resources.”
Christine Mutoni, one of the participants shared a lessons she learned from the training, “..advocacy can be done at all levels from the top to local authorities, we’ve learned that advocacy is not an easy task and thus we ought to prepare and have a concrete plan”.
The Director of Good governance in Huye District, Jean Baptiste Mutabaruka, stressed that effective advocacy is hard to attain thus youth need skills to influence policies. In his message to youth, he said “Advocacy is not an easy job, be consistent, resilient and responsible for yourselves. With that I’d like to let you know that we’re waiting for you to work together”.
While closing the training on behalf of Never Again Rwanda, Noel Ntahobari, reminded participants that they are going to be stewards of the advocacy initiatives in their respective sectors. “Ideally all CSOs ought to be doing advocacy for citizens but they’re afraid of risks or they lack the skills, thus you ought to put to practice what you’ve learned.”
Inzira Nziza activity is a three-year project with the aim to support youth to express and debate their views on democratic values, take leadership roles in political participation as they effectively promote and protect human rights and celebrate their diversities.