Commissioner to NGOs: listen to adolescents if you want to help them

By Eddie Ssejjoba     

The commissioner for youth and children in the ministry gender, labour and community development, Mondo Kyateka has asked child related organizations and other stakeholders to always listen to adolescents and give them a chance to participate in deciding their destiny.

He told the organizations to use child friendly services and only endeavour to build good interventions instead of thinking for them and denying them an opportunity to participate in shaping their destiny.

"We can only build good interventions if we can listen to the young people, don't ignore their contributions thinking they cannot reason. They should participate in shaping their destiny," he said.


Some of the participants at the launch of Ni-Yetu

Mondo was on Wednesday speaking at the Royal Suits Hotel in Bugolobi at the launch of Ni-Yetu, a youth program that targets over 200,000 adolescents both girls and boys in the five divisions of Kampala between.

It considers adolescents between the age of 13 to 24 years with a goal of reducing sexually reproductive health related risks and gender based violence. It will later be rolled out in Lira, Tororo, Alebtong and Kamuli.

The project implemented by Plan Uganda in conjunction with other youth-related organizations hopes to achieve its goal through a combination of behavioural change and system strengthening interventions that will enhance increased availability and access to youth friendly health services.

Mondo said poverty was a big threat in Uganda with an estimated 6.5million Ugandans living below the poverty line but majority of them were youth.

He said there is need to therefore create opportunities for the youth to participate and understand that they can shape their destiny instead of dismissing them as burdens. 

"We should make them understand that their destiny in not determined by their background but by reasoning and working for it," he explained.

He said it is the responsibility of everyone to change the lives of young people to get out of poverty or wait to face consequences of crime as a result of unemployment and extreme poverty.

He explained that the youth needed to know their rights to reproductive health and a violence free childhood but they must also be informed that rights come with obligations.

Mondo Kyateka, commissioner for youth and children in the ministry of gender, labor and  social development interacts with some of the participants at the launch of Ni-Yetu, a youth/adolescents project for senstizing young people on reproductive health issues, among other things on June 24,2015.


"Be open and warn the youth against chasing shadows and wasting time in non-productive ventures so that they take up opportunities provided by government to uplift their livelihood," he said.

Mondo pledged to work with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to sensitize the youth against drug abuse and engaging in domestic violence.

The KCCA director for gender, Harriet Mudondo said her department had several youth programs but their efforts had been constrained by lack of space in the four divisions to set up social centres after the land was sold off by previous leaders at the City Hall.

She however said they were trying to recover some of the land that was disposed of through court battles.

Mudondo said the major challenges for youth in Kampala included unemployment, poor skills, sexually exploiting unemployed girls, among others but they had embarked on a campaign to empower them.

Dorris Akello Otim from Plan Uganda said the program would help the youth who were grappling with unemployment.

She said many adolescents especially in urban centres were engaged in odd jobs and prone to exploitation including. Majorty of them, according to Mudondo were engaged in collecting scrap, serving in brothels, and working as maids in homes were they are sexually abused.

"We hope to give them information about reproductive health, their rights and create an enabling environment for them to earn a decent living," she said.

The program lasts for three and half years.

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