Empowering the youth in higher education institutions for sustainable development in Uganda
On the 6th of August 2022, the Building Capacity for Sustainable Health in Fragile States project (SDGCap) study team held an multidisciplinary engagement workshop with 19 student leaders from different colleges at Makerere University. In higher education institutions like Makerere University, student leaders play a key role in advocating and influencing decisions within their institutions. In this project, we aim to empower the youth within higher education institutions with knowledge and skills and also present them with a robust multisectoral platform to actively connect, advocate and lobby for issues critical to sustainable development such as education for sustainable development, climate change, sexual and human rights among other thematic development areas.
Over 77% of Uganda’s population is made up of youth, which makes them pertinent members of the population, and critical to sustainable development. However, many times they are regarded as incapacitated and left out of positive change processes within their societies. The youth require knowledge and opportunity to become positive change agents within their communities and if engaged and empowered can actively participate in and influence decision-making. Youth engagement fosters youth strength at the personal and group level and can be done through creating awareness, building skills, and encouraging increased levels of self-determination and competence to influence decision-making.
The workshop aimed to provide a multisectoral platform for University student leaders to connect, act and advocate for issues pertinent to sustainable development in Uganda. As well as mapping university stakeholders to participate in SDG-related activities and student activities that can enhance the university’s participation in achieving the SDGs.
The students answers about which university activities to implement to increase awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals.
During the workshop students discussed how their areas of study contribute to the attainment of the SDGs.
“My area of study is about preventive medicine, prevention of disease. We have a high burden or infectious disease as a country. We want to prevent these diseases so we have a less burden of disease. This is related to SDG 3 (Good health and well-being). Aside from my area of study, I am also passionate about human rights, social justices; rights of minorities being represented. I feel bad about racism. How can we integrate that into the SDG?” says Antonia one of the students.
“I believe law is the nucleus of society. It binds us. At the end of the day we are subjects of the law. The best way that government can achieve sustainable development is by enacting the right legislation. It is very important for policy makers to be able to understand where we are coming from. SDG 16 (Promote justice, peaceful and inclusive societies); Uganda, we call ourselves a democratic state but in reality there are many of these targets that are violated. In order for us to have a wholesome society, we need the law” says Law student Henry.