Two Tanzanians to attend youth Parliamentary forum in Nigeria

THE National Parliament has selected two students from the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) as representatives for youths in the country to attend the first ever youth Parliamentary forum for Africa region due to be held in Akwa Ibo state in Nigeria end of this month, it has been learnt. The forum to be organized by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) will discuss together with other matters relating with the increased unemployment opportunities in Africa and this will be the main agenda which is a great challenge to youths who graduates from higher learning institutions. The Deputy Director in charge of Parliamentary protocol and matters related to the International Cooperation, Dermatrius Mgalami told a press conference yesterday in Dar es Salaam that, the two youths would be among the 38 youths from 19 countries in Africa who are members of CPA. He named them as Sylvanus Joseph (32) a Masters student pursuing Strategies and peace studies and Judith Kapinga (27) a fourth year student pursuing law both studying at the UDSM mlimani campus in Dar es Salaam.  

Tanzania National Parliament building in Dodoma

He said that, the youth parliamentary meeting is in line with the normal commonwealth parliamentary sessions which normally are conducted by 19 member states Tanzania included. He added that, for this youth parliamentary session will more be based specifically on the economic integrated issues on the commonwealth states on the creation of job opportunity. However, he said adding that, the two will come back with the deliberations passed by their Parliament and present them to the Speaker of the National Assembly in Dodoma to see how such proposals will be worked out by the government. Elaborating on the best criteria used to select the candidates, he said that, the National Assembly formed a special committee to scrutinize best students as representatives for this forum and sent applications to all 14 publicly and privately owned higher learning institutions accredited in the country. After the first and second selections, the best students were selected to attend interviews which the panelists were sure enough to have done their job of making the right choice of the overall students and have them to represent their fellow youths in this important forum, he said. Members of CPA for Africa region are those countries which were under British colonialism up to the time of their independence, with the exception of the Republic of Mozambique and Rwanda who joined the association recently. CPA was established in 1911 and its jurisdiction was based on other continents apart from Africa which was still under colonial rule. In Africa it will be the first whereas in Tanzania the youth parliament was established in 1980 and ceased from working in 1999. According to Mgalami, the essence of the forum is to give an opportunity for youths to speak out their minds on the various economic matters related to their future life.