By Saio Marrah
Sierra Leonean youth activists have called on Government to provide an open space for youth participation in national peace building processes.
They made this plea at a panel discussion to mark International Youth Day, at the Freetown International Conference Centre on Friday 12th August, 2022.
A member of the panel, Alex Nallo Jr. said since independence ,not much has changed in terms of development, irrespective of who has been in power.
On the August 10 riots, he said youths have not been passing on positive messages to their peers, thereby creating a communication gap, which he said other people that do not mean well for the country are capitalising on to send negative messages against the state.
He also called on the youths to always make sure the language they alter does not have the tendency to arouse conflict, but they should be agent of change in a positive manner.
Another panellist, Mohamed Kanneh, said the problem has to do with fixing the societal structures.
He called for effective training of the Police in especially crowd control during demonstrations and for them to always use proportionate force, instead of using live bullets. He encouraged other youths who want to get recruited into the security sector to have a positive mind in making a difference and defending the country.
Fatmata Kamara who advocates for inmates empowerment, admonished young people to take charge of their destiny and stop expecting much from politicians. She said had the government earlier engaged the youths, the riots might have been avoided.
The Planning and Development Advisor for Youths Partnership for Peace and Development, Mohamed Kunta said youth participation is key in any nation and that if they are marginalised and not given the space to participate there are bound to be problems.
“So we want to see that women are inclusive in decision making, we want to see that young people are now being involved in decision making,” he said.
He called on government to establish national projects designed to get young people, and Civil Society Organisations to massively support their communities in peace- building initiatives in the country.
He said Sierra Leonean youths are viewed as violent but applauded young people that have proved that most of the negative things written about them are not true.
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