4) Youth Empowerment and Participation
5) Youth Health
It is these five (5) priority issues that therefore inform the ‘working document’. As the title
suggests, this document is not final and should be regarded as work in progress, as young people
seek to be at the fore-front of informing any interventions that seek to assist and direct their
development as a demographic group.
3 THE FIVE (5) PRIORITY ISSUES FOR YOUTH
3.1 YOUTH EMPOWERMENT AND PARTICIPATION
Youth empowerment according to the national youth policy is ‘the creation of an enabling
environment for the youths to have the freedom to choose, to participate in and take decisions to
matters affecting them and be ready to accept the consequences of their decisions.’ The key issue
for young people is their ability and capacity to be involved in the decision making processes that
inform policy interventions. For young people, participation is not just be about ‘making up’ the
numbers, but rather should be genuinely driven by prior capacity development so that their
participation is well informed, structured and relevant to the issue or sphere in question.
While the policy affirms the right of youth to be involved in, meaningfully and peacefully
participate in national political, economic and social processes, realities on the ground have an
impeding effect on realizing this. This starts from the very exclusion of young people in the
planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes, interventions and policies
that ultimately seek to benefit them.
Of importance is the call by young people for stakeholders to facilitate the establishment and
funding for youth groups, particularly the community-based groups as avenues for helping young