Over the past few months, a great deal of work has been done in preparing for the first ever Youth Forum to be held by the International Telecommunication Union as part of its Telecom events.
ITU's invitation to its 53 Member States in Africa to nominate candidatures from young women and men of university age to participate in the Youth Forum received a huge response. Some 50 Member States, in coordination with their national universities, nominated candidatures as follows:
45 countries submitted four essays each;
one country submitted three essays;
two countries submitted two essays each;
two countries submitted one essay each.
The Steering Committee, appointed by the ITU Secretary-General, evaluated a total of 186 essays during a preparatory meeting of the Youth Forum held in Geneva on 6 June 2001. A total of 96 fellowships have been awarded to 49 women and 47 men.
Candidates were selected on the basis of a competition which involved writing a short essay on information and communication technologies (ICT), with a focus on development opportunities and the role of the youth. The winning essays illustrate not just the standard of the contributions received, but also show how valuable the Youth Forum at Africa 2001 will be in bringing together students from all over the continent.
Philippe Jacques Codjo Lassou, fellowship Award Winner from Benin, highlights the evolution of ICTs, stating that they "have reduced the world to a global village in which considerations of distance have become almost non-existent where information is concerned, with messages now being sent and received in a fraction of a second".
He adds that young people's role in this evolution is of prime importance. "The first contribution by young people to the development prospects of information and communication technologies is that of a radical change of awareness, whereby [the youth] will assume their responsibilities while bearing in mind the fact that the future depends on them. In order not to halt the process, young people must make greater commitment and become more involved in research, particularly in respect of new information and communication technologies, and establish methods for the conception and actual implementation of these technologies."
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Candidates were selected on the basis of a competition which involved writing a short essay on information and communication technologies, with a focus on development opportunities and the role of the youth |
Another Fellowship Award Winner, Raho Hashi, from Somalia gives an account of how communications saved her life and the lives of members of her family. The following is an excerpt adapted from her essay.
"A bombshell had been dropped right next to our school. We had to run for our lives. So, I put all my efforts into finding my younger brother. Fortunately, I found him hiding in his class. I grabbed him and ran towards home, hoping to join my mother. But as my mother had fled from home to our school in search of us, we missed each other. My brother and I panicked. Fearing for our lives, we did not know where to go. In the end, we decided to run where other people were running.
A gentleman had been working on a two-way radiocommunication equipment. We asked him to help us make a radio call to Mogadishu so that we could ask for my mother and my two younger brothers and sisters. Without any charge he accepted to try, and after repeated calls we found my mother. That was my rebirth! The third day, I went to town looking for my mother from one neighbourhood to another and we finally found them exhausted in a home very different from one in which we lived three days ago.
As a result of the radio call that we made to find my mother and her two siblings, I have decided to become a telecom expert. Without that two-way radio, we would not have been able to find my family. Thanks Mr Alexander Graham Bell, father of modern telecommunications."
All of the winning essays from the 96 fellows will be published in conjunction with the AFRICA 2001 event in November.
Further news on the Youth Forum will be published in the next issue of ITU News.
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Countries from which winners of the ITU Youth Forum Fellowship Award were selected |
| Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Cameroon Cape Verde Chad Comoros Congo Cτte d'Ivoire Democratic Republic of the Congo Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea |
Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique |
Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda Sao Tome and Principe Senegal Seychelles Somalia South Africa Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Tunisia Uganda Zambia |