Ekumfi Essarkyir (C/R), April 12, GNA – Plan International Ghana (Plan Int-Gh) has advocated for young people to be empowered and supported with the requisite knowledge and skills to impact positively on their communities.
Mr Kenneth Danuo, the Central Regional Lead, Plan Int-Gh, said evidence abound across the world that youth empowerment, activism, inclusion and participation had contributed to important social changes for the benefit of all.
Mr Danuo said this at the launch of a Youth Parliament in the Ekumfi District on the theme: “Empowering Young People for Gender Transformation and Equal Opportunities.”
The ceremony was graced by members of the National Commission for Civic Education, chiefs, civil society organisations, and officials from the Ekumfi District Assembly, led by Mr Ebenezer Money, the District Chief Executive.
The Youth Parliament is a project initiated and supported by Plan International to help provide a single formalised youth structure in the Ekumfi District to enable them to air their concerns, deliberate on issues hindering their development, and to hold duty bearers accountable.
It provides the youth a forum to express their ideas, concerns, and expectations from government and other stakeholders for their growth and development.
“However, there is the general perception by some adults that youth are incapable of engaging productively and lack abilities to pursue their ambitions and realize them, hence making them vulnerable, more marginalised, more exposed to poverty, isolation, inequality and diminishing support from such adults,” he said.
The members would deliberate on the motion: “Equal opportunity for women and girls in the culture of every community” and “Empowering Young People for Gender Transformation and Equal opportunities.”
Mr Danuo said as part of the transformation efforts, Plan Int-Gh continued to empower children, young people and communities to rethink their cultural values, beliefs and norms, to enable them to weed out the negative and outmoded ones, which served as the root causes of discrimination against girls’ inclusion.
Plan Int-Gh had attained 85 years in its business of transforming lives of children in many parts of the world, particularly paying more attention to girls, he said.
Mr Danuo mentioned some of the projects as construction of schools and pre-schools with play equipment, provision of furniture, libraries with books, toilet facilities, scholarship for Senior High School students and construction of Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS compounds).
Others are provision of Personal Protective Equipment, construction of mechanised boreholes, and initiation of village savings and loans to transform lives.
“This is why we at Plan Int-Gh find the two motions stated above very much aligned to our transformation agenda,” he said.
“As part of the transformation efforts, we continue to empower children, young people and communities to rethink their cultural values, beliefs and norms, to enable us weed out the negative and outmoded ones.”
He said the organisation was undergoing an internal transformation process to bring to a close sponsorship for children’s activities in the Central Region.
GNA