{"id":12060,"date":"2010-08-01T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=12060"},"modified":"2010-08-01T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-01T20:00:00","slug":"young-leaders-sl-ceo-statement-to-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=12060","title":{"rendered":"Young Leader&#8217;s-SL CEO statement to members"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dear Colleagues, Partners, and Supporters,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">29 July 2010 marked the 5<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary since Young Leaders-Sierra Leone (YLSL) was officially launched in Sierra Leone by the then President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, HE Dr Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, ably represented by Vice President Mr Solomon Berewa in 2005.\u00a0 However, the organisation had been in action a couple of years prior this date, since 2003.\u00a0 Such anniversary could naturally spark a moment of celebration and a lavish party, which of course would have involved you all.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid no such party is planned.\u00a0 But, we just want to use this opportunity to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU to all of you for your help and support over these challenging years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Young Leaders-Sierra Leone has come a long way and working with each and every one of you, we\u2019ve accomplished great things we couldn\u2019t have achieved without you.<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Such as the Sierra Leone Youth Empowerment Conferences, which brought Sierra Leonean youth from all walks of lives in Sierra Leone and abroad to a platform where we constructively discussed ways we could all work to participate effectively in the national development of our country.<\/li>\n<li>Such as engaging with youth groups, individuals and stakeholders to strongly advocate for policies on youth to genuinely benefit the youth. \u00a0One notably example is our partnership with several youth groups in Sierra Leone and the daispora late last year, we launched a nationwide awareness campaign on key aspect of the draft National Youth Commission Bill.<\/li>\n<li>Young Leaders-Sierra Leone, along with a coalition of youth groups and key stakeholders launched in 2007 \u201cThe Young People\u2019s Youth Manifesto\u201d.\u00a0 This Manifesto outlined a compendium of recommendations on issues of concern for all young people in Sierra Leone. The objective of the Manifesto was to ensure that the issues and needs of young people were represented in the electorate process and adopted into the manifestos of the key political parties during the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.<\/li>\n<li>In the same year we lunched the \u201cYouth Development Fund\u201d, aimed at providing funds towards youth development initiatives developed and implemented by young people. The then Deputy Minister of Education Youth and Sports was present to officially lunch this initiative.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The list of the significant work we\u2019ve done, in the area of leadership, advocacy, networking and partnership building, is endless and can go on and on.\u00a0 Today, as we mark our anniversary, we just want to say to you all that we appreciate so much every single contribution you have made to the youth cause. \u00a0But, there is much more work to be done and we must not sit back.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Our colleagues in Sierra   Leone continue to face major challenges.\u00a0 They suffer the most from unemployment; they sleep in the roughest of places; they face deliberate marginalisation; they suffer the worse form of poverty unimaginable; they die young because of poor health facilities.\u00a0 We must cry out loud that this social injustice and social exclusion must stop! And it must stop now!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is profoundly disappointing to see a young person who had spent 12 years in school, 10 years of extreme suffering during the civil war, 3 years acquiring higher education, and unemployed at the age of 30.\u00a0 This is the depressing reality for most of our brothers and sisters in Sierra   Leone \u2013 it is no surprise some people in their forties are happy to call themselves youth.\u00a0 This is a total destruction of a human being.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There are many ways we can all work together with youth groups, policy-makers and other stakeholders to reverse the numerous problems youth face in Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">You may be aware that the World Bank has recently announced it is committing US$20 million to support youth employment in the country.\u00a0 While this money isn\u2019t enough, considering the magnitude of youth unemployment and the numerous problems the youth face, it is a step in the right direction.\u00a0 It is up to us now to make sure that the intended result is achieved in the end.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In Young Leaders-Sierra Leone at present, we are going through reflection processes and building our organisational capacity.\u00a0 This will make us better able to deal with the many challenges that we face, and also to be better able to capitalise on opportunities to help make a better place for the youth.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">One thing is very obvious amongst many young people in present day Sierra Leone.\u00a0 That is there is a strongly feeling of disillusion amongst them in connection with their standard of living.\u00a0 However, there is also a strong atmosphere of hope for a better future.\u00a0 So the question this poses is: How can we all work together to keep this hope alive?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Thank you for your attention and let\u2019s celebrate our achievements and prepare for the future.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With best wishes,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Unisa <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Dizo<\/span>-Conteh, President of Young Leaders-Sierra Leone, From 2009 \u2013 present.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Colleagues, Partners, and Supporters, 29 July 2010 marked the 5th anniversary since Young Leaders-Sierra Leone (YLSL) was officially launched in Sierra Leone by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,1],"tags":[1968],"class_list":["post-12060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-young-leaders-sierra-leone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}