Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF), a leading African youth development advocacy and youth empowerment non-profit organisation has launched its UNDP sponsored “Dissemination of National Youth Authority Act, 2016 (Act 939),” project.
With the support of the National Youth Authority (NYA), the project would create awareness on the NYA Act (2016) and make it accessible to young people, in-youth friendly formats.
The project, which has innovatively synthetized the objectives of the NYA ACT (2016) into interactive informative youth friendly three-minute episodes in three videos, which would be targeted at young people online and through traditional media.
Speaking at the launch, the Executive Director of YBF, Mr Seth Oteng said: “The project has the Inter- Ministerial Coordinating Committee on Decentralisation as the Implementing Partner and forms part of UNDAF’s output of ensuring governance institutions operate within a decentralised, enabling environment and promote inclusive, accountable and transparent governance.”
According to the YBF: “The youth are the main constituents of the NYA, hence, they need to be engaged properly and that starts with creating awareness on the Act and making it accessible to them.
“As we often say, knowledge or information is power. This is the first step to empowering them to appreciate the existence of the NYA and access the opportunities the Authority has for young people.
“With the prior passage of the Local Government Act in 2016, assented to by the President on December 20, 2016, the creation of new department for Education, Youth and Sports at Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies clearly strengthens frontiers for youth engagement at the local level,” he said.
Mr Oteng noted that with YBF’s contribution, it was the organisation’s goal to create awareness on the new National Youth Authority Act 939 (2016) and also make accessible the Act, to young people, in-youth friendly formats to enable them engage meaningfully to improve their lives and contribute to national development.
The Chief Executive Officer NYA, Mr Emmanuel Sin-Nyet Asigri said with the new mandate the ACT 939 (2016) gave the Authority a bigger role to play in nurturing responsible citizens, unleashing the potentialities of young people and empowering them to obtain their aspirations.
According to him, the Authority seeks to be useful to the youth and not to a particular group of young people.
“NYA is for all Ghanaians and so our doors are opened to everybody,” he emphasised.
After the launch in Accra, the Foundation will tour other regions.