Forum gives youths skills to help fight corruption

The Youth Against Corruption Association (Yaca) has identified ‘ignorance’ as one of the lifestyle attitudes that allows corruption to occur.
“Our country won’t change till the youths of today change,” said youth integrity programme coordinator Elizabeth Aribi during Yaca’s first forum in Port Moresby at the weekend.
According to Yaca, there are two approaches to opposing corruption. The first is to oppose the practice of corruption and the second is to oppose the attitudes that cause corruption. The forum had more than 25 youths who participated in group activities and discussions on the theme of ‘Let’s do this together’.
The youths were asked to translate the theme into different Papua New Guinean languages and explain to it their friends.
Their discussions also challenged them to do at least one thing as an active citizen to help the fight against corruption.
A secondary student leader said he often ignored his friends who took phones to school and didn’t report them to the teachers in charge.
“Those are the kind of little things that eventually lead to big things,” said Aribi.
“We have to start with little things, everything starts little.”
The youths who attended came from different backgrounds.
The association hosted the event to bring young people together to talk about governance issues and solutions and ways to become better citizens.
Yaca aims to inspire young people by allowing them to explore their full potential through their voice, leadership and commitment to fighting corruption.
Based on expert opinion from around the world, the Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide.
On a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), Papua New Guinea is measured 29 out of 100, placing it at 135 out of 180 countries observed to be highly corrupt.