A project to promote resilience among women and youth was on Monday launched in Yei River County of Central Equatoria State by an organization called Women for Change.
According to Stella Kiden, the organization’s program manager in the Yei field office, the 3 months project will target women, especially widows, and youth aged 18 to 35.
“This project is about empowering women and the youth and we thought it wise to involve the different stakeholders in the community,” she said. “The project is targeting widows and youth from the ages of 18 to 35 and it is going to last for three months.”
Meanwhile, Kenneth kusara, a community leader in the county, applauded the management of Women for Change for coming up with such an initiative and said it will help the youth stay away from crime.
“I am happy with this workshop because I have received important knowledge about how we can take care of the children and I am so sure when they select the youth, the women and the girls who dropped out of school for the training, we are going to benefit,” he said.
On his part, Johnson Port Hillary, the Yei River County youth chairman, said empowerment can restore hope among the youth because people are still recovering from the effects of conflict and violence.
“Empowerment can restore hope because we are in the restructuring stage and we are trying to come out from the consequences of the violence,” he said. “The young people are involved in drugs, lack jobs, continue to be violent, and continue to be lured into politics and for this reason, self-empowerment can enable the youth to provide for themselves and their families.”
Mary Anite, a representative from the county gender office, urged women and young people to embrace the opportunities offered by the organization.
“I am calling on the organizations to come to Yei because we have young people who are jobless and school dropouts and I want the young people to take the opportunities seriously when the project starts,” she said.
Over 20 stakeholders including the church leaders, the youth, community chiefs, and women were drawn from all the bomas in the county who attended the workshop.