Somalia has got a vibrant youth who are the backbone of the Somali society and has a historic contribution to the birth of the modern Somalia nation. Somalia youth is traced back on their struggle for the independence and formation of the SYC (1946) and the SYL (15 may 1943) youth movements that finally brought independence to the Somali nation from the British and the Italian colonial masters.
Shortly after the independent, the youth also participated in the social cultural and political contribution of the county and align themselves to the government services and joined the political part in all the successive governments’ youth effectively and efficiently shaped their roles across the available opportunities.
Unfortunately, when the Somalia government broke out in 1991 youth become vulnerable to be used by the tribal warlords and easily took part the mass destruction of the country’s infrastructure and millions of youth lost their lives in the civil war, hundreds of thousands more fled to neighboring counties to seek refuge though many of those still ended up in jails in the neighboring counties in attempts to do illegal migration to seek for better places. Youth are easily fragile to be exposed to dangers and indulgent of organized criminal acts. All this scenarios led to gaps for the Somali youth to access education and other valuables rights and traumatized Somali youth potentiality to innovation.
Currently, Somali youth activists and associations is reviving to stages and empower Somali youth in the catch-ups of the state building, social infrastructure and community reintegration efforts and the most pressing challenges is limited supports of youth participation policies and development agendas.
The recent concluded Somali national youth conference attended by 400 youth from the regions was clear signal that youth are ready to be invested for positive aspects and are willing to take part the recovery and the state building efforts. Therefore, we hope that without doubt, that Somali youth Participation in the recovery of Somalia is vital and worth considering in a stable and peaceful Somalia.
Stand with Somali youth where ever you may be.
Thanks you all.
