By Lamarana S Jallow
The National Youth Conference and Festival (NaYCONF), which is the biggest gathering of the country’s youths, with an average of about 2000 participants, is meant to bring young people from all over the country and beyond, to share experiences and deliberate on issues that affect their lives.
This year’s NaYCONF is scheduled to take place in December in Banjul, with the theme, ‘The Role of Young People in the Maintenance of Peace and Security for Socio-Economic Development of the Country.
The biennial event is expected to bring together an enormous number of young people and other stakeholders to discuss issues of youth empowerment and development.
The thematic areas identified for this year border on ICT and innovation, governance, Gender-Based Violence, FGM/C, democracy, human rights, entrepreneurship, sports and other youth development issues.
In an interview with the Executive Director of National Youth Council (NYC) Mr Alagie Jarju, ahead of the conference, he said NaYCONF convergence serves as an advocacy forum for young people. He said it is important to note that through the conference and festival several achievements today had been advocated for by young people during previous NaYCONFs, including the establishment of the National Youth Council.
He disclosed the grounds for the rescheduling of NaYCONF in the past year, saying it was due to several factors including the outbreak of COVID19 pandemic.
According to Mr. Jarju, other concerns being raised by young people currently include improving opportunities for young people to better participate in decision making processes, launching of schemes to enhance youth participation in the entrepreneurship ecosystem and access to finance, provide for a decent living standard, increase in the number of youth friendly centres across the country, establishment of a Ministry responsible for Children’s affairs and enhancing access to skills training relevant to today’s job market.
He further revealed that some of the thematic areas discussed during the previous NaYCONF included youth leadership and political participation, youth employment and entrepreneurship, youth in agriculture, curbing youth irregular migration, access to information and anti-corruption, information and communication technologies, peace and security and gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health.
On the issue of the resolutions, which many believe are not implemented, the youth leader said that, there will be effective monitoring of the implementation of the resolution. “We will partner with relevant stakeholders to support the attainment of the NaYCONF resolutions”.
In conclusion Mr. Jarju added that the council wants to see a participatory and an all-inclusive NaYCONF where young people take ownership of what belongs to them. “We want to see more youth employed in different sectors and contribute positively to the development of the country”.
