By Chisomo Phiri
Some youths from Group Village Headman(GVH) Chiwembe in Blantyre on Sunday launched a youth Community-Based Organization(CBO) called Youth Transformation and Empowerment Centre (YOTEC).
Speaking after the launch, the CBO’s Director Gift Kayuni said YOTEC has been launched to empower youths from GVH Chiwembe and other surrounding areas in terms of their psychological life, emotional life, physical life so as they do not engage in immoral behaviors.
“We have been operating few of us as a committee only.However,we thought it wise to bring this name YOTEC so as to be recognized of what we do out there.
“We want more youths in Chiwembe area and other surrounding areas to know about us and join us,”said Kayuni.
He said they discovered that Chiwembe area has a lot of youths who are school drop outs and are doing nothing to sustain their lives hence the decision to establish YOTEC.
Said Kayuni:”Chiwembe is one of the areas in Blantyre city that has a high number of school drop outs and school leavers. Such youths have nothing to do and as a result they engage themselves in immoral behaviors such as smoking, theft, prostitution and others. To end this, that is why we thought of establishing a youth CBO that will help empowering them in a number of ways.”
He explained that as a youth organization, they have lined up a number of activities to keep youths busy such as sports, mountain hikings, talk shows and many others.
According to Kayuni, YOTEC has come to make Chiwembe a crime-free community.
On her part, Omega Moyo, a project officer at Girls Empowerment Initiative expressed her excitement over the launch of YOTEC and said the two organizations will work together in the work of empowering youths especially girls in the area.
“I am very glad that the newly launched YOTEC has the same vision with our organization which is to empower youths. I hope our organization will work hand in hand with YOTEC to keep empowering youths most especially girls who look down themselves when doing things,” said Moyo.
Group Village Headman Chiwembe also hailed YOTEC members for establishing the youth CBO that will make his area one of the crime – free areas in Blantyre city.
