Youth-Link empowers wards

MADANG District Transgogol Ward Councillor Goli Evadi, walked two days from his remote village Maglian to attend his first workshop in his fifteen years as councillor. The workshop facilitated by Youth-Link is part of its Ward Strengthening Programme centred at capacity building at the community level.
Youth-Link is a community based organisation in Madang. It recently started its ward strengthening programme to complement its existing law & justice programme which was launched in August.
Youth-Link Programme Director, Bryan Kramer, believes law and order issues in PNG are too complex and wide-spread to tackle alone. 
“We’ve taken a strategic approach to the issue by initiating a range of integrated and cross-cutting programmes focused at strengthening wards.
“The programmes build the capacity of local level government and community agents at the ward level, and are designed to incorporate youth participation, training and mentoring.   
“We believe this strategic approach at the ward level provides an essential platform for addressing social and developmental issues,” Kramer said.
The organisation has just completed a month of workshops on awareness on the ward strengthening concept. Forty-seven wards throughout Madang District, with participants including ward councillors such as Evadi, village recorders, teachers, village court magistrates, church, and women and youth representatives participated in the training.
Evadi said, “Mi sapotim tru dispela programme. Mi kisim gutpela skul. Em opim tingting bilong mi. Mi bilip olsem dispela program bai givim pawa go bek long ol pipol.”
The ward strengthening programme initially involves working with each local ward councillor to establish a competent ward development committee. Youth-Link will then work with each ward committee to facilitate on-going training targeted towards capacity building and ward development from planning and design through to implementation. Under the programme each committee will establish its own administration, setup its own accounts, and formulate its own medium to long term ward development plans.   
“The ward plans will allow wards to be organised and have a clear direction of where they are going and how they are going to get there. They will provide cause for local level governments, districts and provincial administrations to include ward plans in their budgets. 
“This will empower urban and rural communities to lobby their respective government representatives to ensure funds are allocated at the ward level.
“The ward committees will in turn ensure these funds are made available to support key agents in the community such as churches, schools, health workers, village courts and women and youth groups,” Kramer said.
Youth-Link has also established a community business support centre to oversee the programme which will ensure sound financial management and good governance practices are implemented. Individual ward accounts will be monitored to prevent misuse and ensure funds are utilised in line with the ward plans.
The ward strengthening programme is aligned with the pillars of the National Government’s 2050 Vision. These include human development, gender youth and people empowerment, service delivery and strategic planning,
The desired outcome of the ward strengthening programme’s bottom up approach is that every community be empowered to take ownership of their own future. Ultimately, this will ensure the flow of goods and services at the ward level, and raise the people’s standard of living.
Kramer said, “Efforts to address youth and social development issues have been piloted over the years, but none truly promoted community ownership at the ward level and have failed. 
“Even after 37 years of independence there is little improvement in the people’s standard of living at both the rural and urban level. These failures or lack of initiative have cultivated the current law and order and social issues we are now all faced with. 
“This programme will truly demonstrate that Papua New Guineans at the community level, like Evadi, are capable of solving their own social and development issues if they are just given the technical and financial capacity to do so.”