Zec engages Bulawayo youths

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has embarked on an extensive youth-training programme to encourage young people in Bulawayo to register to vote.

In Harare, Zec held a similar exercise to address challenges faced by the youth in registering to vote.

Zec director of research and development manager Anthony Chikutsa said young people in the country were backsliding in terms of participating in electoral processes because they did not have enough information.

"We saw that youths lacked the capacity to mobilise and educate other youths in electoral practices, and this Zec exercise is an attempt to fill in the gap in knowledge," Chikutsa said on Wednesday.

"After the youth conference, we looked for technical and financial assistance from the African Union (AU). They came to Harare last week for a national training of youth trainers. The workshop held in Harare last week placed Zimbabwe as the first southern African country and the second in Africa after Gambia to benefit from the AU training programme."

He said they were using a manual developed by the AU governance architecture department, in which facilitators would use to produce well-rounded youth trainers after the training exercise.

"Our aim is to produce well-rounded youth trainers like the two we have here who are from Harare. We also hope to select more who are going to train other youths in Kariba next month if funds permit."

"The youths we have in Bulawayo are from different organisations including political parties, media, universities and civic organisations. There is need to create balance," Chikutsa said, adding that young people also need to understand constitutional issues.

The country is set for watershed elections next year.