Busoga: According to World Bank and several other reports, Uganda has the youngest age structure in the world, with 77 percent of its population under the age of 30. That, by extension, would imply that young people make up the biggest percentage of Busoga and other regions.
How then can young people be mobilized to contribute to the development conversation of Busoga region?
When left unattended to or in the hands of skimming politicians, young people are only be mobilized and weaponized to act as hecklers and hand clappers on the periphery of conversations and discussions that tend to shape in exchange of sometimes water, waragi, transport refund or sometimes just promises.
In the end, the region gets stuck with a group of young people who can’t give a coherent argument about what and how they want their region to develop and what their role or contribution should be.
In these pages, this newspaper will give young people the platform to engage with leaders in business, civic and the political world on topical issues important to the development of the region.
Young Busoga is to therefore be a platform to mobilize ideas, challenge the status-quo and give solutions to keys issues or problems with the aim of informing policy, legislation and political action.
For every edition of Busoga Today, a topical issue will be chosen by the newspaper editorial board. A keynote writer shall be sought to write between 800- and 1500-word opinion on how the region needs to address the topical issue.
Then at most three Young Busoga development enthusiasts will be asked to engage with the keynote opinion and in not more than 700 words give their views on the topical issues anchoring their arguments and proposals on the key note opinion.
The different arguments will then be curated and published in these pages and on all our social media platforms for the general audience and for decision makers on policies affecting Busoga to take note.
Young Busoga is one of the ways Busoga Today will contribute to the development conversation of the region by bringing the young people to the table to engage with elders and offer their ideas.
Do you want to be called up on contribute your views on a topical issue? Do you have an issue you would like the pages to consider? Do you have a specific elder you would like to be called up on to keynote in these pages?
