For successful empowerment of youth in Guyana, it’s essential that the leadership should include the young people in the decision-making processes. Only the youth themselves understand their situation and would suggest solutions to help. That will make the implementation steps easier when dealing with policies that affect the young people. The young people should be involved in all the initial stages and not just when it comes to carry out the development processes.
*Develop clear goals with plans for achieving the goals
Before coming up with activities for engaging the youth, it’s essential that you come up with clear objectives to help steer the agenda to completion. Having goals will help to give direction to project participants and other concerned decision makers. State clearly what the role of the youth will be in carrying out the project that is going to affect them. Since the activity is meant for the young people, it’s important that their voice is heard right from the generation of the project ideas throughout to implementation. Once this is spelled out, there’s a need for developing a plan that will successfully carry out the agenda. Let the plan capture ideas on the budget allocations, expertise required, monitoring and evaluation and means of training the participants. Those processes should be full of diversity to include youth from different backgrounds, gender, disabilities, and cultures. Ensure that the design of the projects is flexible enough to encompass feedback, and new ideas from the youth.
*Provide training and support
The process of youth empowerment requires not just the knowledge of it but support. Youth activities have to include support channels such as mentoring, protection and facilitation. The above support is helpful to encourage the youth to learn, develop more confidence and keep striving towards a common cause. Without which the initiatives might fail, they need relevant guidance through training to get more understanding of their roles on youth projects success. Let the youth engagement initiatives reflect the ideas from the youth and they will be willing to see the agenda to succeed. The training to be given should remain relevant to the plan for ease of implementation.
*Providing resources
It’s essential to provide the necessary resources to the youth for a successful implementation of youth engagement projects. Provide clear communication on where the funding is coming from, identify the key stakeholders in the process and the level of involvement with the local government. Let the youth beware of the financial expectations of the project and the level of engagement in the process. Formulate a capacity building strategy while looking for possible partnerships to help achieve the initiative objectives. All that helps to make a successful youth initiative as failure would dim the expectations and dreams of the youth.
*Give roles to the youth
It’s necessary to identify positions that the young people will effectively give their best participation during the project implementation. Providing such opportunities to the young people will make them feel recognized, and empowered thus ready to implement change for growth. Give opportunities to choose topics, conduct mobilization programs, organize and plans for events and campaigns.