The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded Youth and Citizens Participation (YCP) programme has finally wrapped-up after one-year of efforts to strengthen and develop the capacity of civil society in Guyana, with emphasis on having increased civic participation among women and youths.
US Ambassador Perry Holloway addressing the gathering at the closing ceremony for the YCP Programme
The programme was implemented by Counterpart International, and was launched on January 6, 2016 with a scheduled conclusion date on January 31, 2017. Counterpart’s mission was to partner with local organisations – formal and informal – to build inclusive, sustainable communities, in which their people thrive.
The YCP Programme had two components, Phase One – which promoted voter education efforts for the March 18, 2016 Local Government Elections (LGE), under which the ‘Vote like a Boss’ and ‘You’re Still a Boss’ initiatives were born. Meanwhile Phase Two of the programme, focused primarily on leading the social cohesion process with the involvement of political parties, elected leaders and constituents. The latter component saw the parties involved undergoing training and the implementation of cohesion building activities, as well as projects in 10 communities throughout the country.
Project Coordinator, Norwell Hinds, presented an overview of the programme, during which he posited that that the YCP provided a unique opportunity to present to the country and its communities, a model of social and political partnership for community building.
“The two objectives of the YCP were part of a single theory of change; first, get people involved and excited about voting, about their role in their democracy and secondly, bringing those people together with their elected leaders to all work together on a shared vision of democratic change in their communities,” he stated.
Hinds went on to state that in order to ensure that partnering organisations have the capacity to further the cohesion work done under the YCP, several micro-grants were distributed.
“The micro-grants became a symbolic demonstration of that theory of change where the communities, through dialogue, passes identified issues that they want to solve, local councillors receive training and then both work together to finalise a proposal and receive a grant of up to $200,000 (US$1000) to implement that micro-grant in their communities,” the Project Coordinator outlined.
Meanwhile, with the YCP programme was being funded by USAID, a United States government foreign aid initiative, US Ambassador to Guyana Perry Holloway pointed out that his country recognised the importance of having youths participate in the decision-making process and governance of their communities hence its support to the YCP.
“The project implementation schedule of 12 months was relatively short, but it did not diminish the importance of what was accomplished… Data suggests that many of the councillors elected (during the LGE) as local representatives, including mayors and deputies in the nine municipalities, are from a younger demographic. This is encouraging as statistics from the 2012 census show that approximately 50 per cent of Guyanese are under the age of 24,” the Ambassador highlighted.
He also commended the efforts of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the Communities Ministry, the Social Cohesion Ministry and other organisations that were the driving force behind the activities held under the programme.
The implementing partners of the YCP Programme were the Guyana National Youth Council (GNYC), Help and Shelter and Youth Challenge Guyana.
The successes of the programme include: 200,000 individuals benefiting from voter education; 213 voter education events conducted; 16,000 individuals reached directly through one-to-one engagement with community mobilisers; two training manuals developed; and 10 social cohesion micro-grant community projects implemented.
