The National Youth Council (NYC) last Saturday, presented a group of four identified youths for the African Youth Initiative and Creativity Awards (AYICA) 2009 to the National Assembly members in order to address, present and defend their essay works for a final selection to AU Commission, for the final awards to be held in Ethiopia from 25th-29th July 2009.

AYICA was launched on November 1, 2008, with the main objective - to popularize the African Youth Charter and encourage young people to take action and leadership in advocating for its ratification at national levels. In accordance with the above, the AU Commission through NYC urged young people between the ages of 15 to 35 to take part and write essay of a maximum of 1500 words on any of their topics of choice. The selected topics included African Youth Charter; Citizenship and positive values; Youth policy; Youth rights and participation and Youth adult partnership.

According to Marcel Mendy, executive secretary of the National Youth Council, 21 entries were received by the council while four were shortlisted for the final selection at the National Assembly. The shortlisted candidates were Lamin Gassama, a law student at Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI); Rabiatou Ceesay, a final year Gambian student at the University of Ghana; (English Major and Sociology minor);  Ansumana Darboe, Department of Social Sciences, University of the Gambia; and Aji Mariama Senghore, the youngest among them and a Grade 11 student at Saint Joseph's Senior Secondary School.

The first to present her work was Rabiatou Ceesay on the topic The African Youth Charter. She indicated in her essay that it is indisputable that youths constitute more than fifty percent of Africa's population. This percentage she said, highlights the fact that those who are presently the so called youths, would be termed as the adults in the very near future." She added that youths need to be given adequate time to grow comfortably whilst being exposed to the realities of the world naturally as there should be no child that has to feel the stress of poverty, unemployment, divorce, abuse or war.

Ansumana Darboe's work was centered on Youth adult partnership. On this, he said, youth adult partnerships are based on the understanding that young people have a right to participate in programs that affect them and that with training and assistance, they can become powerful advocates for positive change. In addition he said, transformative results occur when young people help lead social change efforts as involving young people will bring fresh ideas, new talents and critical perspectives to the table.

Lamin J Gassama centered his work on African youth promote African positive values. He said like a human being, a state may continue to be a state even though some of its human resources are not actively participating in its development efforts. However, he said, a state will only be a corpse if its youthful population is redundant in contributing their quota to the development efforts as young people constitute the soul of every nation.

The last contestant, Aji Mariam Senghore, to substantiate her work, pointed out some of the articles from the African Youth Charter as they entail the rights and duties of youths and final provisions for youths. She noted that the African Youth Charter aims to promote youths' potential freedom and contribute in the development of their countries and Africa at large.

In his remarks, Hon. Abdoulie Bojang, deputy speaker of the National Assembly, commended the four participants for their bravery performance and efforts to come out with such a good and worthy essays for presentation at the AYICA 2009. The panel of judges comprised of Hon. Ebrima Jammeh, Hon Seedy SK Njie and Hon. Cherno Omar Jallow, who confirmed the age, place of origin, citizenship and occupation of the four contestants for authenticity and legibility to participate in the competition.