Youth must play a leading role: PORET
Steve Ephraem
ACCORDING to Wikipedia, “Africa’s population as a whole is very young, with 60 percent of the entire continent aged below 25, making it the youngest continent in the world, in relation to its population makeup.
“All of the world’s top 10 youngest countries by median age are in Africa, with Niger in first place with a median age of 15.1 years.”
This simply translates to say that in every 5 people, three of them are youth below 25 years age.
Armed with such knowledge, it there is no doubt that investing future development projects in the youth is the way to go. When young people are involved in project, they can take anything and everything.
The youthful souls are capable of taking risks. They can stand up for their values. The youth have the time to explore further than what elderly people can do.
Involving youth in agroecology projects is a step that Participatory Organic Research and Training (PORET) has embarked on. The director for PORET, Mr Julious Piti indicates that the future of agroecology lies with youth involvement.
“Young minds must be fully involved in agroecology projects. The world in turning to agroecology concepts and this revolution requires a lot of energy. Young people have the drive and ideas.
“We have climate change at play. The effects of climate change are being felt everywhere in the world. Chimanimani was seriously affected by climate change and everyone felts its effects including the youth.
“It would be fooling ourselves if we say the young people are busy pondering how to overcome the issue of climate. They should be given space and platform to exhibit what they are thinking. Above all, they should lead in agroecology projects.
“We should let the youth manage our landscapes, make land productive, harvest water and manage livestock. This way, we will far in mitigating climate change,” he said PORET is a self help organisation, was started in 1998 at Chaseyama in Chimanimani. In the year 2000, it won an Environmental Management Agency (EMA) award on sustainable conservation.
PORET is a member of several networks in agroecology and permaculture such as PELUM Zimbabwe, Africa Biodiversity Network, AFSA, and others that support Agroecology.