The youth across Yei River County in Central Equatoria State have been trained in leadership skills and urged to be agents of change in society.
This call was made on Monday by the chairman of the Yei River County Youth Association, Johnson Poru Hillary, during a conclusion of a three days capacity building training for the youth.
Poru told the media that the training brought together 60 participants from the five payams of the county to strengthen the capacity of the young leaders and promote peace and development.
“This is one of the empowerment training to strengthen the capacity of youth leaders in Yei River County,” he said. “We invited the youth leaders because last month we embarked on the formation of the structures at the payam level, particularly in the 3 payams of Otogo, Mugwo, and Lasu.”
“Since the formation of these structures, there has been no training so we organized this training to strengthen the youth leadership,” Poru added.
Some of the participants Radio Tamazuj caught up with said they were mentored in good leadership.
Kiden Mary Mark, a representative of Reconcile International in Yei, called on the female youth leaders to be courageous in participating in such important training.
“Most of the participants were men so the ladies have to struggle and participate in such trainings. You may think that you are wasting time but you are not and your participation changes peoples’ lives,” she said. “Now when you go deep into the villages, you find that the lives of our mothers and the young ladies have improved. As an organization, we are happy and in case there is funding, we will allocate it to women.”
Poru called on the young people in the county to be agents of peace in the community.
“Change begins with us so let us inspire the people in other parts of the country. All over the world, we see young people coming into leadership,” he said. “We see churches getting organized and you begin to wonder what their agenda of introducing homosexuality to our people is. What does it have to do with us? Is this how we want to see the world change? What will happen to our children when we are gone should we not act now?”
The training was organized by the Yei River County Youth Association with support from Reconcile International.