By Musema Swali

Arua

A joint research conducted by Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in Arua City has pointed out lack of support and poor access to information as some of the major challenges faced by youth in the city.

The research carried within Arua Central Division targeted youth in leadership, teenage mothers and Persons With Disability (PWD) under the Youth Participation in Decision Making Cluster.

Head of Finance and Administration at West Nile Youth Empowerment Centre, Ratib Kenyi explains that, a report giving details on the findings will be shared with stakeholders to address challenges identified. “In the implementation of this project, we are just partners. So we are going to write report to our partners about the findings. And in the report, there are recommendations to see how the issues (challenges), the gaps that we have identified can be sorted and this can be done through the various stakeholders” he said.


Head of Finance and Administration at West Nile Youth Empowerment Centre, Ratib Kenyi
 
Arua City Male Youth Councilor, Simon Enatu reveals that, there are programs in place to address some of the challenges faced by youth.“We are not seated, we are not sleeping but we are trying our level best to address this. A case in is that we have government programs which are for young people, for example we have Youth Livelihood Program (YLP) which is back, we prepared 6 groups of YLP in the last Financial Year, I think by now they have received funds. And also we have program of Presidential Initiative which is situated in Zombo, as Arua city, we have so far trained 60 youths” he said.

Some of the key findings in this research include high youth unemployment, inadequate funding of youth programs and high teenage pregnancies cases.

A resident of Mvara Ward within Arua Central Division, Gladys Munguci says, the recommendations by the team gives hope in life. “There are a lot of information I picked here, one of them is that we should not loss hope, there is still time for change. My next year plan is that, I want to go back to school and start from where I stopped” she said.

Other Community Based Organizations that participated in this research are Women Effort for Inclusive Development and Propel Accurate Community Empowerment Initiative.

COVER PHOTO: Arua City Male Youth Councilor, Simon Enatu in interview with Radio Pacis By Musema Swali