Empowering young people and allowing them to participate in the decision-making processes has proven to be extremely beneficial to their development. Young people learn the skills required to be effective leaders when they participate in decision-making activities. When young people know they have the power to influence decisions, they will rise beyond their peers and begin to exhibit leadership qualities. They will experience a sense of responsibility and a set of abilities that are required to represent a specific segment of the community’s population.
If you are a NGO and want to solve problems of youths and need to engage young people in decision making processes that touch around governance, voice, accountability and sexual and reproductive health and rights. This sample project on youth rights will help you to create your own proposal to your mission of youth development.
Project Summary:
As per the reports majority of African youth continue to face challenges such as unemployment, lack of skills, relevant education, access to capital, unmet need for health-related information and services including those related to diagnosis, treatment, and care of those living with HIV and, above all, prevention of new HIV infections among them. This situation is even more accentuated among youth in rural areas.
According to the National Youth Policy the lives of millions of Ugandan Youths are marred by poverty, inadequate education and skills, inadequate work/employment opportunities, exploitation, diseases, civil unrest and gender discrimination. Additionally, that the environment they live in brings both new possibilities and new risks that undermine the traditional social support that helps the Youth prepare for, negotiate and explore the opportunities and demands of their passage to adulthood. Given this situation, investment in Youth is not only a social obligation but also rewarding in economic sense because the Youth as the country’s most valuable assets are an integral component of the development process and they provide for and safeguard the future of the nation.
The Youth in some of the area of Uganda are experiencing human rights abuses of all kinds including lack of inclusion and participation in key development programs, community leadership and planning, lack of recognition and support for youth development associations which necessitates practical and participatory community interventions in the strengthening of the rights of the youth both young women and men. This is primarily because most human rights abuses are committed against the youths a group that often lacks political power, who are the most active and visible section of society willing to take risks in order to speak out against injustices and for the protection of everyone’s rights. It is the youth that do all the hard work in political parties and in social organizations. They are to be found at the forefront of every civil and political activity which exposes them to the unkind attention and cruel actions. They are prime suspects whenever any civil strife occurs and are easily victimized. As this generation of the youth continues the struggle for a social and economic development that respects the environment, cultures and peoples, the respect for human rights must be kept at the centre of the debate. Without respect for human rights, the ability of the youth to move to a sustainable future will be hindered.
Project Objectives:
- To increase knowledge among the youth about their legal rights through Capacity-development and participatory awareness.
- To promote a culture for participation of the youth in development planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of existing development programs in their areas.
- To strengthen the capacity of local leaders and other development partners through training in Human Right Based Approach to Programming to enhance delivery of quality services to the Youth.
Project Activities:
- Activity 1: Training session of Community Youth Councilors and other indigenous structures on provisions of National and International Human Rights frameworks and the Principles of Human Rights Based Approach to programming. A three-day event will be held with a participation of 55 indigenous leaders both women and men from the two XXXXXXX Sub County. A suitable venue will be hired in XXXXXXX town. Training materials like stationery, food and transport costs will be provided by the activity budget. The trainers will be gotten from our partners ABC foundation since we have been working with them in similar thematic areas.
- Activity 2: Conducting Human Rights Awareness workshops for the indigenous youths. The workshops will be conducted in the 11 villages for 11 days in XXXXXXX Sub Countytargeting a participation of at least 550 youths both males and females across the targeted area. Existing local youth centers in the communities will be used as venues with no cost. Workshops materials costs like educative posters on Human rights information in the indigenous language will be designed printed& supplied to at least 1000 youths. Stationery and refreshments will be catered for in the activity budget line and we shall still utilize workshop speakers from the partner organization ABC foundation alongside our project staff.
- Activity 3: Running radio jingle to heighted human rights awareness campaigns targeting a larger community of youths. The Jingle will be recorded in the both indigenous language and English to ensure equal access to quality information. The Jingle will be paid for in 12 months and lobbying will be made to allow an extra time for it to be run for free.
- Activity 4: Conducting parish level community dialogues between the youths and local leaders strengthening strategies of their inclusion in development planning meetings, participation in government programs and project ownership. Six dialogues will be conducted with an overall participation of 180 both female and male indigenous youths and local leaders; parish halls will be used as venues for the dialogues, materials like stationery, water &food will be catered for in the budget and moderators will be the project staffs.
- Activity 5: Formation of Sub county Based Human Rights Forums to ably observe, discuss and report human rights abuses to relevant authorities for fair justice. Two Youth forums will be formed with at least 15 members each including 2 existing human rights defenders in the areas. The two-day activity will be guided by the project staff. Selection & formation related costs will be catered for in the project budget.
- Activity 6: Participatory monitoring and support follow-ups to the established forums’ activities, quality of community dialogues and other project related activities to ensure their relevancy as planned, timely documentation, reporting of best practices and end of project media publication in both newspapers and district portal upload. Monitoring process will be done at start of the implementation, project staffs will be in charge with the M&E specialist’s guidance and development of the relevant project tools, related costs like fuel will be catered for in the project budget.
Project results:
- The project will increase knowledge and awareness among the youth both males and females of their legal rights and entitlements and increase their engagement in preventing and responding to abuses of their rights through existing youth-friendly legal structures.
- The project will increase the capacity of community structures like the Local leaders and police to implement the mechanisms outlined in the framework of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- A Human Rights Based Approach to Programming will be enhanced among the community policy and planning systems focusing on the need for inclusion, participation of the youths in all programs directly affecting their lives.
Sustainability
Sustainability of this project is highly depended on a number of approaches predetermined in its design, for example, (1) the engagement of existing local structures like the local leadership system in ensuring a continued observance and handling of the human rights abuse cases through Human rights oriented trainings will create ownership of the interventions, (2) the establishment of Community Based Human rights forums will exist beyond the project period and be adopted by the local government and the police in ensuring documentation and referral of abuse cases are handled in a justified way, (3) the capacity built among the indigenous Youth and Community Youth councilors in the different Human Rights frameworks will be a way for sustaining their approaches and actions of response to situations of Human rights abuse cases, more so, a Human Rights Based Approach to programming principles when instilled among local leaders/planners will mean that all people especially the youth are entitled to participate in society to the maximum of their potential, this in turn will provide a supportive environment to enable the youth develop and express their full potential and creativity. The planned community dialogues between the local leaders and the youth will draw lasting recommendations pertaining youth inclusion and participation in all matters that affect them in their communities, this will give a better position for the youth in voicing their Rights challenges to the same leaders whenever gaps exist as far as their participation and inclusion are concerned. The key expected result will be a society where the youth are empowered to express their views and participate in decisions affecting their lives.
Gender and Indigenous Women
Women and men are an integral part of all activities of this project starting from the Human Rights capacity building sessions of the existing structures like the local council leadership structure, the Women Youth Council Forums (WYCF) at local levels and Community Associations for both men and women will also form a greater part of the project’s participants. One of our organizational practical values where a society must not engage in any activity that discriminate against women because of their sex will guide the engagement of all project activities. Therefore, the project implementation approaches will ensure equal participation for both men and women at all levels. There are no specific activities that are independently focused to women in this project but they will equally be part of the whole process as members of the indigenous population whose rights in the same way have been trembled upon.
Participation and Indigenous Governance:
Participation and Indigenous Governance Indigenous governance structure in XXXXXSub County where the project is targeted involves the parish chiefs, Local council I, II & III chairpersons, and the indigenous councilors among others. All these constitute our indigenous structure or termed as local leaders. The design of the interventions directly engage these structures as direct beneficiaries during trainings in Human rights framework and HRBA approach and community based monitoring to enhance their capacity to respond to Human rights related cases. The same governance structures will be linked to the established Human Rights Forums and directly participate in the community dialogues with the Youth to strengthen the levels and approaches to respond to the rights challenges among the youth in areas of participation and inclusion in development programs and decisions that affect their daily lives.
