Int’l Youth Day: Youth Representatives, Activists, Local And Int’l Experts Meet

Celebration for International Youth Day began on Wednesday in Yangon with youth representatives from different political parties across Myanmar with their theme “Making youth voices count”. 

The UN General Assembly designated August 12 as International Youth Day in 1999 and the theme for this year International Youth Day 2019 is “Transforming Education”.

The International Republican Institute (IRI) organized the event with the support of USAID. According to the IRI, the event aims not only to provide an opportunity for young people from different political parties to discuss the issues affecting their lives, inspire youth to build their leadership skills, enhance their ability to make a difference on youth issues and networking with among local and international youth leaders, activists and experts.

Resident Program Director, International Republican Institute, Jeremy Liebowitz said "... Young people are still less than 15 % of the parliament, the Union and states, regional parliament. But I think the young people have a lot to contribute both as an elected officials and engaging in many other ways with their government to make sure that they get better services and they get more youth friendly country.... The goal, the idea is that the people have to be able to work together to solve their problems, some of the themes and some of the ways to approach and address those issues, things that are common across all parties.... I think some of the key area is just for the people to thinking about what education is most relevant to young people who are coming into work force in Myanmar

Youth representatives from political parties highlighted their wish for the long lasting peace and need for the development of education in their regions.

Ta’Arng National Party, Mai Naing Aung Moe said “We do have differences but we need to work together peacefully and get united for the development of our regions and country. Most importantly, we want peace. Currently, we still have armed conflicts in the region and do worry about the future of our people. Many areas in our region still don’t have schools. As education is really important for the development of our lives, I wish to see more support and actions for the improvement of education sector in our region.”

Kachin State People’s Party, Sar Li Htwe said “All of us are here not only to find an opportunity to discuss and share our differences and opinions on youth issues, development, peace and networking among local and international youth leaders and experts. In our Kachin State, we have a lot of IDP camps. We hope to see easier access to education and scholarship for them - we need to help them live their lives in their places peacefully rather than in the IDP camps. We hope to see more efforts for more relevant, equitable and inclusive education for all.”

Youth representatives, activists together with local and international experts will run the 2-day event until Thursday.