Major Newspaper Covers One of Our Graduations as youth participants Celebrate This Newspaper article covers one of our entrepreneurship youth empowerment graduation ceremonies in the City of Bo, Sierra Leone where the guest speaker Mr. Augustine Paul Tucker in his keynote address expressed his concern at the high rate of youth unemployment within Sierra Leone, which according to him, scared away several investors. He recommended that self-employment was the best option for members of the young generation that want to distance themselves from corruption. He congratulated and guaranteed the participants that, with their success in the MEYE-SL/Planestartup entrepreneurship online course, they were on the right path to contribute to personal, community, national and global development. As he ends by saying that he is sure that skills learnt will help the participants in strengthening them to develop socio-economic knowledge in catering, build-up-resilience to ownership and self-employment to businesses within Sierra Leone. Planet Startup operates in Africa, Brazil, China, Australia, and the US to mentor and coach young adults residing in remote or marginalized areas of the world to set up and run their own Internet-based companies as well as connecting them with partners to help them succeed. We believe talent and initiative are distributed equally over the planet; however, opportunity, technology, as well as access to capital, payment platforms, and markets are not and we are helping to fix that.

School Sponsorship Implementation in Five (5) Schools In Kori Chiefdom For 2017/2018 Academic Year. With respect to reinforce vulnerable children’s rights in having a vision of a world where all children will have equal opportunities to access quality education to escape from poverty and fulfill their dreams. Movement towards Education and Youth Empowerment-Sierra Leone (MEYE-SL) on the 10^th August, 2017 conducted a two days baseline survey on out of school going children in seven (7) villages, Kwella, Foya-wulleh, Largo-Kawelma, Toobu, Njolorhun, Mogbodo, Mambayema across the Kori chiefdom, Moyamba District, Sierra Leone across the Kori chiefdom, Moyamba district. This action was because of fulfilling our commitment in working towards promoting sustainable development (4) goal and thus the successful implementation of a planned School Sponsorship Programme. According to the baseline survey, fifty (50) vulnerable children were targeted right across the seven villages in Kori Chiefdom in which the organization was only able to select and budgeted for the ten (10) most vulnerable children. These beneficiaries benefited from the School Sponsorship Programme with incentives like, school fees, school uniforms, shoe, notebooks, pens, pencils. We sure this helps to aid their learning process.

Eight Entrepreneur Students Graduate from Our First Cohort Entrepreneurship Training Course. In the bid to mitigate the high rate of poverty and youth unemployment in Bo city and Sierra Leone at large,  Movement towards Education and youth Empowerment-Sierra Leone (MEYE-SL), has synergies efforts with Planetstartup Entrepreneurship Academy, a registered International Organization in the Florida/USA to mobilize vulnerable youths within Sierra Leone to partake in their online entrepreneurship and mentorship training sessions in helping to build the knowledge base of youth within Sierra Leone in Entrepreneurship and project management. We have been working together in mobilizing committed youth through connecting them with Planetstartup via skype to give out entrepreneurship training, mentorship, and business coaching services. This first training programme lasted for three (3) months, and it geared towards transforming the mind-set of participants to change their thinking, rather to develop thinking on new jobs inspired by these emerging technologies and also start thinking about entrepreneurial creativity, so as encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship to be a top priority for them concerning the potential for jobs creation and a source of boosting up their self-reliance capacities. The training concentrated on strengthen the participants to be change ambassadors, working to step down to them the message of job creation, productive skills, innovation, social entrepreneurship and peaceful co-existence and supporting good leadership and helping to advocate for creation of policies that encourage widespread involvement of our youth in the promotion of economic empowerment and participating in poverty reduction within our community. The training programme concentrated on topics like leadership in project management, business plan writing, crowd funding opportunities, strategic operations, business ethics, marketing, innovation and technology, emerging markets and risk analysis, strategic business planning, and corporate social responsibility.

The Minister for Gender, Children & Social Protection, Hon Cynthia Mamle Morrison has advised girls to protect themselves against deceitful men and boys. The Gender Minister stated that girls should protect themselves from unscrupulous men who will end up wasting their valuable future leaving them with nothing. So, she strongly warned girls to protect themselves from being raped.“Be careful with men who seems friendly around you because rapist do not come in a rapist attack but rather, they come innocently crawling and before they realize they are being defiled,” The Minister stressed. Hon. Cynthia Morrison made these remarks at the National Dialogue on Sexual Violence Against Girls & Boys organised by Plan International Ghana & Youth Advocates (YAG) Ghana on Tuesday 16th April, 2019 in Accra. The dialogue sought to identify strategies to end sexual violence and assault against girls & boys in Ghana. Hon. Cynthia Morrison further advised children who suffered sexual abuse to confide in trusted relatives, friends to help them report to the police. She disclosed that Government has put on measures to punish perpetrators of rape. According to her, stakeholders have also help victims of rape with support such as money, hospital bills settlement among others to aid the family of the victim to cut down cost in incidence like this. She said: “The first model Child-Friendly court inaugurated by the Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Sophia A.B Akuffo to provide a safe environment for children as they interact with the justice system and reduce fear in the victims which will help them provide enough evidence to seek for justice without any hindrances.” Hon. Cynthia Morrison urged both girls and boys to take their academics serious rather than engaging in sexual practices that will waste their future because they can become prestigious people in the society. She also called on them to engage in craft that will generate income rather than practicing sexual immorality. The Executive Director for YAG, Mr Emmanuel Ampetepey, indicated that most Ghanaian children were not well informed about their rights so they lack education on their sexual rights, describing it as a serious matter which needed government intervention to help strengthen the fight against child sexual violence. For his part, the Country Director for Plan International Ghana, Mr Solomon TesfaMariam lamented that no violence against children was reasonable and that all violence against children was preventable. He advised parents to treat reports of abuse from their children with care and closely check on the children’s activities as well as their relationship with friends, family members, since that would help detect any changes of behaviour and ease identification of any existing form of abuse against them.

Source: MoGCSP

In the lead up to the African Regional Forum on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be held in Morocco in April 2019, Restless Development, the 2030 Youth Alliance, Youth Advocates Ghana, Library and You, YouthHubAfrica, End Water Poverty Coalition and African Monitor held a webinar on the theme “African Youth: Powering the Sustainable Development Goals”. This practical youth-led webinar, the first in series, seeks to provide key insights and tools for how young people across Africa can input to their government’s Voluntary National Review (VNR) process and ensure they are held accountable to their Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) promises at national, regional and global levels. The webinar was co-moderated by Boitumelo Zwane, Commission for Gender Equality, South Africa and Damilare Oyedele, Library and You, Nigeria with Emmanuel Ametepey, the Executive Director of Youth Advocates Ghana-YAG and Convener of African Youth SDGs Summit delivering the opening remarks. The speakers comprised Itumeleng Thabang Moiphisi, Research Consultant and Youth Champion for the Citizens Report at Youth Alliance for Leadership Development in Africa (YALDA)/African Monitor; Aisha Matiko, Youth Accountability Advocate, Restless Development Tanzania; Rotimi Olawale, The Executive Director of YouthHubAfrica and Uzoamaka Mbara, Programme Officer, Christian fellowship and Care Foundation and End Water Poverty Coalition. Opening Statement In his opening statement, Emmanuel Ametepey gave an overview of the Voluntary National Review Process and mentioned how this space offers a great opportunity for young people to shape decisions on issues affecting their lives and provides civic spaces where they can dialogue with government officials and duty bearers to deliver on the SDGs promises. He further noted that, in order for national governments to account for their progress on the SDGs, The United Nations through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has instituted the yearly review of the SDGs at the High Level Political Forum which encourages member states to conduct regular and inclusive review (Voluntary National Review) of progress at the national and sub-national level which are country-led and country-driven and aims to facilitate the sharing of experiences, successes, challenges and lessons learnt over the years with a view of accelerating the implementation of the SDGs across countries. He indicated that, the 2019 HLPF, the 4th in series will see about 50 countries from across the world reporting on the theme “Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality” from Tuesday, 9 July, to Thursday, 18 July 2019; including the three-day ministerial meeting of the forum from Tuesday, 16 July, to Thursday, 18 July 2019.

The set of goals to be reviewed in depth are:

• Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

• Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

• Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

• Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

• Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. Highlights of the Webinar .In response to the question on the role young people can play in SDG planning, implementation, review and follow up at different levels: national, regional and global, the speakers made the following observations:

• Most African Governments do not really see the relevant contributions that youth bring to the table and often neglect them in the development process. This poses a very difficult challenge to young people as they must constantly find ways to consistently convince Governments of the relevant contributions youth can make to the SDGs.

• Often, young people and youth organizations work in silos making it very difficult for Governments to work with them as they are unable to know whom or which youth organization to deal with.

• Financial challenges are also great barriers to young people in their work on the SDGs. Young people are limited in the area of financial capital needed to advance the work they do on the SDGs and are unable to raise funds or identify funding support for their works.

• Political bureaucracies in dealing with government agencies which slows down the progress of the works of young people on the SDGs

• There is lack of or limited data on SDGs available to young people to serve as an evidence base for their works. Young people find this very challenging as it makes it very difficult to make assertions without any data backing.

• It is important that young people are able to identify what they want to do and find opportunities in their various communities. Young people must be self-starters and be able to work on their goals before presenting to Governments. This would serve as a critical leverage to engage with policy makers and hold Governments accountable.

• Young people must learn to work as an organized front in their engagement with key government agencies and institutions as this makes it easier for institutions to deal with them.

The speakers also agreed that young people face various challenges with their Governments in working on the SDGs. These serve as barriers in their work on the SDGs and hinder intended progress. However, speakers identified the following solutions to the above challenges:

• Young people must learn to bring recognition to their works by preparing shadow reports to present the things that they do. This would serve as a leverage to fight for recognition from Governments, government agencies and institutions that they intend to work with.

• Young people must also identify others working in the same area as them, team up and work as a formidable front in their engagements with institutions.

• Young people must be their own motivators and push their agendas until they finally realize the results they want to see without waiting on governments. Addressing how young people can engage their national governments and to ensure their voices are not ignored, the speakers noted that:

• Young people and youth organizations must leverage on their numbers to mobilize, organize and engage with a united front as the voice of large numbers cannot be easily ignored. The African Youth SDGs Summitwas mentioned as a good example of how young people can create their own space and use it to engage policy makers.

• They must also ensure that they engage duty bearers with relevant information so they can be given the platforms to operate.

• The relevance of capitalizing on videos and articles to convey their messages to the intended audience and also take advantage of their networks and alliances to reach relevant authorities to support their works. In concluding the webinar, the speakers recommended that young people and civil society organizations interested in engaging their national governments on the Voluntary National Review process must contact the National Development Planning Commissions in their respective countries or through the National Youth Councils/Authority at country level.

By: Ellen Lindsey Awuku, Communications Officer & Youth Champion at Youth Advocates Ghana.

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