Pause
  • Young people elected to be VDC Junior members in the community of Nanlia, in the Metuge District.
    11 March 2021 | Mozambique

    Junior VDOs – A new approach to tackle today´s challenges

    Young people elected to be VDO Junior members in the community of Nanlia, in the Metuge District. AKDN
  • As in other processes, in the election of Junior VDC’sthe community leads and actively participates.
    11 March 2021 | Mozambique

    Junior VDOs – A new approach to tackle today´s challenges

    As in other processes, in the election of Junior VDOs, the community leads and participates actively. AKDN

Over the past 15 years, the Aga Khan Foundation in Mozambique has invested and worked hard for the strengthening of Civil Society in the communities in the north of the country, particularly in Cabo Delgado province, through the creation and renewal of Village Development Organisations (VDOs), which are local governance structures comprised of democratically elected community members.

Gujarati Audio Version , Urdu Audio Version , English Audio Version

The VDOs have bi-monthly meetings, where they address and discuss their priorities and needs for its development, and where they try to find mechanisms to meet them.

Given the current pandemic context, added by a serious challenge that has been gaining greater visibility since October 2017, some districts of Cabo Delgado province have been the target of terrorist attacks, and in which young people are enticed and forced to join the terrorist movement. To combat this tendency, it was necessary to find alternatives to strengthen social cohesion and resilience to the radicalization in the communities, namely through the strengthening of the VDOs.

Concrete strengthening actions were defined and are implemented daily on the ground through teams from the Aga Khan Foundation Mozambique through more inclusive local development initiatives that allow communities, and youth, to raise awareness about alternative, evidence-based narratives to counter extremist content, improve trust, cooperation, and participatory decision making among the different actors working to address key drivers of radicalization.

In this perspective, the establishment of 20 Junior Village Development Organisations (JVDOs) is underway in Metuge district. These VDOs will be bodies for consultation, planning, coordination, and execution of village development actions, promoted by young people between the ages of 15 to 24, that wish to contribute and have a greater participation and inclusion in decision-making in their communities, to nurture a stronger social cohesion.

The structure of the Junior Village Development Organisationis composed of different areas of interest such as education, health and environmental sanitation, entrepreneurship, economic activities (formation of savings groups), gender, and recreational activities (sports, dance, gymnastics).

The suggestions and decisions to be made by the Junior VDOs will be taken to the umbrellaVDO (already existing in the communities for several years) of each village for discussion, decision making, and implementation.

The young people elected for the Junior VDOs are pleased with the initiative and are hopeful for the opportunity to be more actively involved in the different actions for the development of their communities.

"We, the youth of the community, didn´t participated in the meetings or in the planning of the activities that were developed in the community, because we thought it was somethingthat wasn´t of our concern. Slowly, we realized that we were missing out on good opportunities to have an active voice in the community and to be part of activities that were directly related to young people. Now that we have realized it, we want to participate and to be able to make decisions that we believe will benefit us at some point. We realize that we still facemany challenges such as the lack of a secondary school, community meeting places, a market, and a bigger hospital for the community"  said IassineBelarmino, President-elect of the Junior VDO inNanlia.

It should be noted that the Junior VDOs are a pilot model being implemented in the Metuge district, which is expected to enable more inclusive, participatory, community approaches, and to promote social cohesion and persistence, and at the same timeitcontributes to the strengthening and development of the community.