The Youth of Malawi are currently underrepresented in local governance structures. They have well educated, modern, 21st century views on how Malawi should be governed, but their voice is not heard. With almost 8 million Malawians (more than half the population) under the age of 18, it is vital that the views of the youth are represented in governance in order for democratic principles to be satisfied.

In many communities in Malawi the incumbent candidate almost always wins, and thus there is little political change – and so there is little change in the daily lives of the residents of these communities. To bring about change a new candidate is required, to challenge and question the incumbent openly and respectfully. If the new candidate wins, then change will occur – but even if the incumbent wins, they will have had to compromise and accept some of the wishes of their challenger, and to enact social change.

It was with this in mind that AYISE sought funds from Plan Malawi to enable us to engage the youth of the Mulanje District. The project consisted of providing skills and training to aspirant youth groups to enable them to operate effectively, providing a platform for youth voices, and enabling young people to congregate in a safe environment. We helped youth groups in the Mulanje District to establish constitutions, official roles and responsibilities, visions, missions and objectives. These provided the motivation and direction for the groups to decide what was important to them, and to implement structured actions which would allow them to achieve their goals.

In addition to our work in improving the effectiveness of youth groups in the area, we also engaged with youth to advise them of the possibilities available to them through engaging with duty bearers and local government structures. We encouraged young people to become involved in the democratic process – from the most basic level of voting, right up to notifying the youth that they are eligible to run for election themselves.