Isaak Salissou Sani ,
Please provide us with your views on the state of youth (un)employment in your country, and how it affects your country's state of peace?
Over 70% of the population of Niger are young people, and for longest time the government and policy makers and political leaders still have been lacking in addressing issue related to unemployment . As result, Niger ranks last in the UN Human Development Index and according to analysts, there is a strong link between insecurity and large-scale unemployment in the country. A study conducted in five over eight regions of my country Niger, shows that frustration among people is the major factor of conflict and violent extremism triggering and intensification. It is also a factor that lead young people to start rooting ethnic and religious conflict among the population as well as being used by politician to trigger unrest and uncertainty after elections when these young people didn’t migrate or were not recruited by terrorists groups.
How does your work and/or activism promote youth employment and/or sustainable peace?
Since the beginning of my intervention to contribute in preventing and countering conflict and extremism, I innovated and started with leading caravans in villages with my peers and introduced activities such as music and sketches, using the “cousin-in-jest” strategy which is a kind of jokes between ethnicities and communities to get them remembering their connection and history. Furthermore, my NGO trained my peers to create their own associations or organizations, empower them with information and resources such as volunteerism and entrepreneurship, job opportunities, scholarship offers, serve as security guards, etc.