CHITRAL: The two-day youth convention held under the aegis of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) adopted a number of recommendations for stronger partnership among communities, civil society organizations and government for sustainable development of the area with focus on resolution of youth related issues here on Monday.
HunzaNews,Sept 9,2014
Held under the aegis of Enhancing Employability and Leadership for Youth (EELY) project of AKRSP, the event attracted the activists of youth organizations from all the union councils of the district who shared their success stories of their ventures during the last two years. Speaking on the occasion, the regional programme manager of AKRSP, Engineer Sardar Ayub, said that the EELY project has accomplished marvelous job for youth development with the help of local support organizations in all the union councils of the district. He said that the project has focused its activities on the employability and leadership of the youth segment of the society giving equal opportunity to the women folk and it was heartening to note that the youth issues are now being addressed on grass root level. “The bifurcation of the project into two had worked well as the issues of unemployment and the exclusion of the youth from local decision making process are being addressed side by side”, he said. “The employability component has inculcated in the youth folk, both male and female, to rely on the meager resources for self-employment while the leadership component has introduced the youth with the new dynamics of exerting himself or herself in the collective matters”, he added. The convention consisted on a number of sessions each with a new theme in which papers were read out on different aspects of youth development while some beneficiaries of different programs of the project shared their experience with the participants. A woman Zubaida from upper Chitral won great applause from the participants when she told how she driven out her family from the morass of poverty and indigence and transformed it into an affluent one within a short span of two years with the help of EELY project. “My mother-in-law changed her attitude from hostility to friendship when I started earning from my business and now she love me more than my husband (her son) and this is a great achievement for me”, she said. Speaking on one of the sessions, the Chitral deputy commissioner Aminul Haq termed the project a highly valuable contribution of AKRSP and said that it had mitigated the pressure of the unemployed on the government by its employability program. He said that the outcomes of the project are manifest right now in the sense that the youth folk is taking active part in the solution domestic issues and their interaction has noted to be on increase with the government agencies. The youth organizations established on union council level had showcased their activities in the form of resource management in more than thirty stalls in which the participant evinced great interest. Those who addressed the convention included Moenuddin Khattak, Fazle Malik, Sajjad Hussain Shah, Muhammad Wazir Khan, Razia, Sultana and others.–Zahiruddin
