NAR places particular emphasis on youth, guided by the belief that young people are the future leaders of a peaceful society. With these values in mind, NAR joined the global community to celebrate International Youth Day on 13th August 2019 under the global theme of: Transforming Education.
The event aimed to:
• Create a platform for youth to discuss various challenges and opportunities to transformative education.
• Develop networks for effective peer to peer collaboration and increased partnership among youth from diverse backgrounds
• Empower youth with skills to develop independent initiatives that contribute towards sustainable development.
In light of the reality that a large portion of the world’s youth continue to face barriers which prevent them from attaining equitable, quality education, the Executive Director of NAR, Dr. Joseph Nkurunziza Ryarasa weighted the importance of making sure education provides relevant skills and knowledge. During his opening remarks, he emphasized that: “Education should be inclusive and accessible to all people with different abilities. Transforming education requires us to equip youth with relevant life skills that enable them to combat hindrances such as high youth unemployment rates and early pregnancies.”
A youth panel during this event also gave their views and understanding of transformative education and shared how education systems or various forms of education can be accessible and inclusive for all. Yvette Ishimwe, the founder of Iriba Clean Water Delivery Ltd, was among the youth on the panel. When describing her understanding of transformative education, Yvette stated, “Transformative education requires exposing youth to various skills and subjects thus creating a wider variety of career options to choose from, according to what is relevant and of interest to them.” Her statement highlighted the lack of options for schooling youth in terms of subjects that they can study which are interesting to them or that lead to more non-traditional, creative jobs.
The youth panel also discussed how education systems or various forms of education could be accessible and inclusive for all. “Transformative education should encompass and complement informal education so as to have greater impact and be accessible to all. This will allow a larger number of youth to be included in transformative education and reach their full potential and contribute to building a sustainable society” said Albert Kwizera, a young artist that was also a part of the panel.
Through discussions with the panel and other youth, it was understood that it is vital to bridge the gap in the quality of education offered today and that transforming education should help young people realize their learning potential and provide them with the awareness and drive to solve existing issues and some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
In his closing remarks, NAR’s Youth Engagement Coordinator emphasized that, “Education is not only in schools. Every opportunity to use skills and initiatives that contribute towards sustainable development constitutes education.”