Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have asked the government of Uganda to formulate initiatives that will be used to engage youth in meaningful activities to help them avoid criminal acts.

Initiatives such as involving youth in decisions that affect them and acknowledging their rights and needs, educating community leaders on the importance of youth participation, rights, and responsibilities, creating a safe space for young people to discuss issues with older generations, encouraging talent development, bringing together youth with different social identities, and creating a voice for them through activities need to be considered.

The Senior Program Manager of Uganda Development Youth Link, Rogers Mutaawe, said on Friday, November 8, 2024, on local radio that as the festive season approaches, some jobless youth tend to join criminal activities because of unemployment.

Mutaawe added that these youth fall prey to different people who come and idealize them by giving them different ideas that are wrong and trafficking them to unknown places where their respective people find it difficult to trace.

“We have gotten many youth to come together and give views and ideas and discuss how we can support each other at community grass-roots level so that we prevent our young people from going into acts of crime,” he said.

Read Also: Finance Minister Asks New Investment Board to Tackle Youth Unemployment

In Uganda, youths aged between 18 and 30 years in 2024, 35% were no longer in school and were in employment, while 12% were still in school and about 51% were neither in employment nor education training.

The government established programs under the National Youth Policy, designed to support young people to find employment by extending grants and other support to small groups of young entrepreneurs with the aim of unlocking the potential of youth for sustainable wealth creation and general development.