Despite making up more than half of the population in the North and Nigeria generally, young people (ages 18-35) often find themselves marginalized from mainstream politics and decision making. In Kaduna, among other northern states, young men and women struggle to gain the respect of public officials and are seen as lacking the skills and experience to engage in political activity to lead positive change in their communities.
This exclusion, combined with limited educational and economic opportunities, have left young people both idle and frustrated with the status quo.
The Mr LA Foundation founded and funded by Lawal Adamu Usman, supports young people in the state to channel their energy, creativity and aspirations to become future political and economic leaders and active contributors to policy making and management.
Worried that youth in the state need real opportunities to participate in political processes and contribute to practical solutions that advance development, LA, through the Foundation, is giving them an opportunity to organize, voice their opinions and play a meaningful role in political decision making that will foster positive, lasting change.
He is also encouraging them to demand and defend democracy, and gain a greater sense of belonging by introducing programmes to build their skills, knowledge and confidence and helping them to more effectively express their voices, build relationships with political leaders, and break down sociocultural and institutional barriers to participation.
This follows the renewed call for action across sectors to attract young people to politics and reduce barriers that inhibit young people’s leadership, particularly those who have faced a long history of political exclusion.
Working with several civic activists to identify opportunities to collaborate outside of traditional avenues for engagement, Mr LA has so far helped bridge the growing divide using strategies that recognize young people’s legitimate concerns about formal institutions and the different ways in which young people want to organize politically.
This however requires political parties to reassess the opportunities currently being offered to young people, and how these opportunities might be exclusionary to young women and men from diverse identities.
Mr LA strongly believes that democracy and political practitioners should look beyond traditional approaches to youth development that are often designed and implemented using narrowly defined objectives and outcomes. According to him, improving youth development outcomes across sectors and addressing systemic inequality and exclusion requires working beyond development silos to understand and respond to increasingly complex democratic challenges facing the youth.
Informed by positive youth development principles, there is a compelling need for cross-sectoral programs that better position young people as active and organized participants in development processes and the social fabric of their communities. For example, Mr LA is working with young women and men in Kaduna to respond to intercommunal violence and build political capital through microcredit.
This cross-sectoral youth development approaches aims to address the range of underlying causes to youth exclusion and to create opportunities for young people in Kaduna to collaborate with stakeholders from different sectors to collectively address development challenges.
Additionally, Mr LA is working on a cross-sectoral initiative to better understand and develop approaches to supporting the youth across sectors especially through support for education.
(Suleiman, a journalist writes from Abuja)
