GADeF Youth Parliament Calls for More Female Representation

The Founding Executive Director of Global Alliance for Development Foundation (GADeF), Emmanuel Marfo has lauded Youth Parliament decision to give 50% representation to young women in the Youth Parliament. This, according to him, will serve as the basis for Ghanaians to support the increase in women’s representation in the national parliament as a tool to support the girl child and grow women into leadership positions for national development.

The Youth Parliament is an advocacy initiative by GADeF modeled in the form of the national parliament with representation from various youth associations and interest groups in the Asutifi North District aimed at empowering the youth in the district to engage duty bearers and organizations to implement programmes that seeks to improve the wellbeing of the youth in the area.

According to him, the project since its inception in 2016 have already provided financial management training for its members equipping them with skills in financial management and income generation to enable them cater for their welfare.

The Executive Director of GADeF made these disclosures at a day’s capacity building workshop on the positive use of social media in communication and marketing organised by GADeF through its Youth Power Project in Kenyasi in the Asutifi North District of the Brong Ahafo Region.

It was attended by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd (NGGL)., Newmont Ahafo Development Foundation (NADeF), ActionAid Ghana, Asutifi North District Assembly (ANDA), National Youth Authority (NYA), Oman Botantim, Women Consultative Committee and Representatives of various Youth Groups. It was sponsored by the Centre For Democratic Development (CDD) and the French Embassy aimed at providing a platform for the youth to be part of local governance and national development.

Participants were schooled on the efficient and effective use of social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, Viber, and Text Messaging among others.

He emphasized the importance of information sharing and urged participants to fully participate by sharing information and experiences and was hopeful the initiative will serve as an avenue for broader consultation amongst stakeholders in the district.

He appealed to the assembly invest more in the potentials of the youth especially education to enhance the human resource needs of the country for development as well as involve them in their budgetary planning.

Mr. Marfo lamented low capacity of youth NGOs and CBOs and low involvement of youth in sustainable development initiative was their main challenged and called for measures to address them.

He hinted of collaboration with the assembly to establish a Youth Development Fund (YDF) to address the challenges of the youth in the area and called for support from stakeholders and expressed gratitude to CDD and the French Embassy for their support and appealed for more assistance from other stakeholders in the area.

The District Planning Officer for the assembly, Mr. Atta-Era Akularemi James for his part, commended GADeF and its partners for their effort in helping to boost advocacy activities in the district and pledged the assembly’s preparedness to support youth programmes.

He disclosed the assembly was in the process preparing of her 2017 Medium Term Development Plan and called on GADeF and the Youth Parliament to submit proposals and inputs to make the document sustainable. This, he hoped, would provide the needed support to empower to demand accountability of resources available for development and to help reduce the prevailing poverty in the worst deprived communities in their districts of operation.

Mr. James praised the enormous role GADeF was playing to improve the lives of the youth in the district, adding that the Assembly was ready to collaborate with stakeholders and other NGOs to develop the district.

He said the Assembly’s doors were always opened to other NGOs that were ready to offer support to the youth to develop their potentials and help reduce poverty in the district.

Participants at the end of the training were encouraged to share highlights of the event and discussions across social media networks especially twitter with the hash tags #YPGADeF #YouthParliamentGADeF.

GADeF is a local NGO based in Kenyasi operating in the areas of Youth Empowerment, Girls and Women Empowerment, Sustainable development, Provision of Grants, Education and Entrepreneurship Training, Environment and Natural Resources Management and Good Governance in Asutifi North Constituency. They also have partnered Phinklife Institute to provide training for students, Fellows Exchange and Business Start-Up Support for the youth and organizations.