Civic Education on the National Youth Council Elections

The civic education for the National Youth Council elections process was one of the activities under the “Action for a Credible, Legitimate and Youth Driven National Youth Council” project. The project aimed at promoting peaceful, free and fair elections with majority of the youth participating at all the levels of the elections. for a credible National Youth Council in Kenya. It was therefore taken to be of paramount importance that the youth be educated on the election process of the National Youth Council before voting for their leaders. The project was supported by UNDP through Amkeni Wakenya.

Africa Youth Trust through its network members in the selected provinces and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, managed to organize public forums in the five provinces in order to reach out to the youth in those areas. The selected provinces were; Eastern, Western, Nyanza, Nairobi and Rift Valley. Civic education forums were conducted between 10th May- 14th May 2011 before the commencement of the National Youth Council Elections to be conducted across the country from the sub-location level to the provincial level from 16th May – 17th June 2012 while those of the National Delegates/ National Youth Congress being scheduled for 23rd and 24th June, 2011.

The sessions were divided into various sections where each section had a particular topic discussed in detail by the facilitators.

The topics discussed were:-

• The Kenya National youth Policy
• The National Youth Council Act 2009
• National Youth Council elections Guidelines 2011
• The role and responsibilities of the youth towards the establishment of a credible and legitimate National Youth Council

AYT managed to educate close to 1,500 youths from the five provinces with support from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports District Youth Officers.