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PRESS RELEASE

PRESS RELEASE

YMCA leads a campaign to transform the youth into “true citizens and not subjects” used to perpetuate violence instigated by some selfish leaders-

Youth of the YMCA of Ghana and their National General Secretary are participating in an upcoming African YMCA Youth Summit in Ethiopia. It is in line with a major and tasking project to reverse the sickening phenomenon of young people being used by selfish leaders to perpetuate violence and crime of all forms across Africa.

The main objective of the Youth Summit to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 28 October to 5 November .2009 is to equip the youth to become true citizens and not subjects of some politicians, religious and opinion leaders who abuse them.
We have all being witness to various forms of violence in Ghana, political, ethnic or religious and it is always the youth that perpetrate these crimes, when in actual fact they are being instigated and even funded by a political, ethnic or religious leaders. This unfortunate situation has made the Ghanaian and for that matter the Africa youth a subject of these self seeking leaders instead of being a citizen of his or her country.

The up coming conference themed ‘From Subject to Citizen: African Youth Claiming their Space, Influencing for Positive Transformation’ is therefore expected to eventually liberate their minds from this dangerous trend. On return to Ghana, the Ghana YMCA youth and leadership will begin to implement action plans to ensure the youth in Ghana are developed and empowered as citizens of the country and of Africa.

Commenting on the upcoming Summit, YMCA volunteer and Summit lead facilitator Vezi Mncwango said “Youth in Africa have been subjects, used by politicians and criminals for agendas that are not in favour of their development. On a material level, these youth become entrapped in a spiral of escalating poverty. Young people fall into conflict with the law – either as perpetrators or victims – when they are perceived as subjects, treated like subjects and behave like subjects.

“More worrying is that these youth suffer from a poverty of dignity and self-actualisation. Their lack of belief in themselves is exacerbated by their isolation and marginalisation from all spheres of positive participation from community to continental level. Current youth development initiatives are more focused on providing youth with life skills and information to make better life choices.

“However empirical evidence shows that these alone are not sufficient to restore youth dignity and self belief. This Summit is therefore not only aimed at skilling up youth participants, but more fundamentally at reshaping and transforming their model of the world from being on the effect side to the cause side of life.

“They will deliberate on and develop action plans for what it means to be a citizen – a young leader who has the skills and confidence to engage with all their churches, communities and governments to make positive changes. They will leave with belief that change starts with them and as they live their change, they will make significant positive impact in their societies.”

This is a major programme will permeates on programmes and events of YMCA in Ghana and Africa with the strongest desire and hope to reverse this unfortunate trend. Ghana will next May host the Partnership Conference where more efforts will be made to drive home this agenda.

We hope this press release will be given the widest publicity to kick start the campaign to make the youth of Ghana citizens, able to engage the authorities meaningfully and not subjects of some selfish leaders.

YMCA - The Youth Organization
The YMCA is an organization that stands for the development of young people in body, mind, and spirit in a way that will make them useful and productive citizens. In Ghana, our mission is to empower the youth for the African renaissance by building their civic competence and economic capability to influence policies that affect them as well as enable them to derive their own livelihoods.

The Ghana YMCA traces its history to 1890 when a young Gold Coaster, Wilkins Michael Abbey who had come into contact with the Association in Scotland during his study tour to Europe, brought it to the Gold Coast. Since that time the YMCA movement has grown and spread to many parts of Ghana (eight out of ten Administrative Regions).

The Ghana YMCA is a youth-oriented organisation that occupies itself with transforming young people from subjects to citizens.

Signed: Prosper K Hoeyi
National General Secretary
Ghana YMCA
Phone: 021 224700/226246

posted onFriday, November 6, 2009