ActionAid International has assured continued commitments to support youth empowerment programs across the globe.
The Director Resource and Mobilization , ActionAid International, Anne Jellema gave the assurance at a webinar organized by ActionAid Nigeria’s Social Mobilization Unit in partnership with Youth Digital Engagement (YDE) to share experiences and lessons on youth-led action in data collection, analysis and social accountability using digital tools.
She expressed concern that following reports and analysis given at the webinar, it was obvious that young people are not included in the Covid-19 recovery plan by the Federal Government.
She said young people have been overlooked as a movement that they are and called for the collaboration of the Civil Society Organization and ActionAid to all come together because the youth are ready to fight for their future.
A panelist and a Youth Digital Engagement (YDE) champion from Zambia , Monde Mbanga explained that from data collection and research process, it was made clear that young people were facing financial troubles, job losses , closure of businesses.
She said this was proven when data was analyzed adding that it was devastating to find out that there was lack of understanding of COVID-19 and it dangers by young people who believe that COVID -19 is an illness for the rich .
She explained that data was extracted from kobo collect platform and analysed as a team using excel, which was then interpreted by sector .
Monde recommended for a meaningful youth empowerment, educational support for vulnerable children and youths especially during disaster .
Also, a Youth champion with ActionAid’s YDE project in Nigeria, Dorcas Festus Bennie explained findings showed that young people are yarning for employment creation and access public services to be more gender responsive .
She said major media of government programmes during the COVID-19 lockdown was through various channels of National Social Investment Programmes based in existing register of poor and vulnerable persons as recorded in the National Social register .
