Young
Leaders Forum
With
half of the Afghan population of 30 million people younger
than 18 years old working with youth becomes a political
necessity. For the last three years the Kabul office of
FES has been running its “Young Leaders Forum”
(YLF) to train youth activists for a political career.
Not without success. Quite a few of our “Young Leaders”
have been promoted into high positions in Afghanistan’s
new democratic institutions. You can find the members
of our program working as advisors to ministers and in
the presidential palace. Yet every Thursday afternoon
they return to the FES-office in Shar-e-Naw where they
– together with the next class of YLF - undergo
further training in leadership skills, teamwork, organizational
development and management techniques.
There
we also invite politicians and professionals for discussions
about current affairs, be it the security issue in the
South or the challenge of dealing with Afghanistan’s
troubled past. This is not an easy task in a country where
more then 20 years of war have not only destroyed the
infrastructure but also the capacity for public discourse.
Under
the guidance of FES the “Young Leaders” have
learned to discuss and argue among themselves crossing
the traditional boundaries of ethnicity and gender. In
doing so, they have become the vanguard in developing
a culture of dialogue.
In
2006 our “Young Leaders” have traveled to
provincial capitals to start the same training for local
youth that they have experienced in Kabul. In Kundus,
Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif they found a very receptive audience
for their workshops. FES is committed to expand its working
with youth all over the country since the political leaders
for the future of Afghanistan need to be recruited in
the provinces, too. This network of young hopefuls that
YLF has begun to create needs to be strengthened and expanded.
FES-offices
all over Asia share the view that youth has to be at the
center of democracy promotion. The “Young Professionals
Network” in Pakistan and Youth Groups in Sri Lanka
have taken up this challenge. Regional exchanges and study
trips to Germany or other countries complete the FES activities
for young political activists. Without youth being at
the forefront of the process of democratization, poverty
reduction and institution building will not succeed. This
applies not only to Afghanistan.
YLF-Visiting
Programme in Germany pdf
Workshop
on Leadership and ASL pdf
Regional
Youth Workshop
Selection
of YLF Members (report from YLF Assessment Centers)
pdf
Conference
on Youth and the Constitution (Full Report)
pdf
Conference
on youth and upcoming elections
Election
Monitoring Project
Study Project
