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Councils told to fund youth projects

By Arusha Times Correspondent

Local government authorities have been urged to allocate part of their annual budgets for development projects targeting the youth, many of whom are facing problem of unemployment.

Speaking during the official opening of a youth centre for Hai district, Kilimanjaro region last week, the project manager with the German Population Foundation (DSW) Avit Buchwa said the problem of youth unemployment was acute in the area.

"This centre has been opened specifically to assist them and one way to get them is to initiate income-generation projects", he said, noting that the tendency of seeing young people in jobless corners was discouraging.

However, the official said opening the centre was one thing and maintaining it was another. He called on the Hai District Council to ensure it is sustained so as to enable it play the role it has been established for.

To make it perform its duties as intended, the official advised, the council should apportion part of its annual budget to support economic  projects initiated or managed by the youth in the area.

Mr.Buchwa said the  youth policy formulated some years back required that the local authorities should set aside at least five per cent of their yearly budgets for youth projects. Experience has, however, shown that this was not being implemented to the letter.

He added that youths, especially those who are either not well educated or lacking the necessary skills, should not always be blamed for being lazy, hence the rising unemployment among majority of them.

"Some of them have initiated projects but lacked funding", the project manager explained, noting that the newly-opened centre would mainly target the young people who lacked the necessary skills or missed some educational opportunities.

He disclosed that more such centres would be opened in villages and townships, adding that one such centre in at Sokon One suburb in Arusha, Masama South in Hai  and another at Qurus village in Karatu district.

"Our target is to have one youth centre in each of the eight district councils where DSW operates", he pointed out. The Kilimanjaro regional administrative secretary Ms Zuhura Chikira inaugurated the facility.

She called on the youth to take advantage of the support they were getting from the German organization to open various income-generation projects that would benefit them and hence reduce the impact of unemployment.

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