Vote for youth ―
Increasing Youth Representation in decision making bodies
In the area of political participation, eligibility for national parliament starts at 25 years old or older in a third of all countries. About 1.6 percent of parliamentarians around the world are in their twenties. Young people between the ages of 15 and 25 constitute a fifth of the world’s population, according to UN Youth. Facts prove the necessity of a young generation that is more engaged, that leads toward a higher quality of democratic governance.
Youth are a valuable resource for any country and thus often seen as a hope for the future, change and regeneration. From a global perspective, it is said that, “the young generation is traditionally seen as one of the most dynamic mediums of social change.
This is because the young often play a vital and dominant role in social movements which are usually the driving force behind these changes” (Glinski, 1998).
However, in Sri Lanka, mainly due to several violent youth insurrections since 1970, youth are sometimes seen as a problem that need urgent solutions and reactions, rather than as a resource in the country’s development process.
The National Youth Services Council (NYSC), which is the premier implementing body relating to youth affairs in Sri Lanka, has defined youth as the young people between the ages of 15-29.
Accordingly, youth comprises approximately 21 % of the entire population. In line with demographics of Sri Lanka. Yet they continue to face several challenges, mainly poverty and social unrest, unemployment and lack of opportunities, lack of representation and lack of clarity and continuity in youth policies.
LYON has recognized the important of the youth participation in decision making process from the begging of the organization formation. As a result of that from 2016 LYON has organized a campaign call “vote for youth “ which tries to convince and lobby political leaderships in political parties and the common public on having more youth political participation in local level and national level policy making institutions.
to achieve that objectives LYON has been doing various kind of awareness creation programs and press conferences to aware public to have more youth political participation in Sri lanka.
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