Gifty

I am a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow (MWF) from Ghana and works as the International Youths Coordinator of the Womens’ Situation Room (WSR) program by the Angie Brooks International Centre (ABIC) in Liberia. My work among other tasks is to ensure youths from diverse backgrounds are well educated and informed of their role in ensuring peaceful elections within the ECOWAS region and elsewhere in Africa. I work to empower youths to understand and accept their differing political leanings as part of a thriving democracy and not recipe to instigate violence. I have years’ experience in developing the capacity of gang youths to be peace ambassadors during elections in Africa. Due to my work with disenfranchised and disadvantaged youths in slums and ghettos, the WSR is now widely acknowledged by the United Nations Security Council and the Africa Union as the only youth led mission for the first time ever in elections in Africa to broker deals with gang groups and bring them together on the same platform to dialogue ways to ensure peace before, during and after the elections. My work is continuously moving the discussion from diagnosing youths as forces driving violence to more detailed discussions on utilising them as potential conduits to develop more strategic and focused interventions. I am also passionate about Human Rights, and is committed to developing the human capital and agency of youths, thereby empowering them for societal development. This is my experience that I want to share with the rest of the world to ensure that together we achieve sustainable peace within our global community.