National development policies have clearly indicated skill building, employment generation, and meaningful participation of youths which is accelerating their local level engagement process. To support them to receive basic services equitably, empowering young people is key. SERAC-Bangladesh with the support from UN Democracy Fund and UN-Habitat is initiating urban youth councils at four city corporations of the country, namely Rajshahi, Rangpur, Mymensingh, and Narayanganj under the Advancing Engagement by Setting Up Urban Youth Councils in Bangladesh project.
According to the following activities- on 16th August 2022, Mymensingh City Corporation and SERAC-Bangladesh jointly organized a meeting at the meeting room in Mymensingh City Corporation to formally hand over the guidelines for the urban youth council and exchange views.
At the meeting, in the presence of the honorable Mayor of Mymensingh City Corporation, Government-private Development Officers, and fifty members of the task force, the guidelines for the City Youth Council were presented and handed over to the Mymensingh City Corporation. Noted that this guideline was earlier formulated on the basis of the views of the task force members in the guideline workshops under the Mymensingh City Corporation and in the validation meetings guidelines on the views of government and non-government development officials.
The meeting was conducted by Md. Salim Miah, Assistant Director (Program) of SERAC-Bangladesh. Honorable Mayor of Mymensingh City Corporation Mr. Ekramul Haque Titu was present as the Chief Guest. In this meeting, Executive Director of SERAC-Bangladesh SM Shaikat, MCC’s Urban Planner Manas Biswas, Panel Mayor Md Asif Hossain, Ward Councilor-29 Md Rafiqul Islam, Reserved seat ward councilor-4,5,6 Shammi Akhtar Mitu, Advocate Md Matiur Rahman Faisal, Public Relations Officer and Private Secretary (Acting) to Honorable Mayor Md. Sheikh Mahabul Hossain Razi, Daily Sabuj Newspaper editor Md. Moyeen Uddin and other guests.
The host organization, SERAC-Bangladesh mentioned, that this project will enhance the capacity of civic engagement among the youths of this city, and engage them with a participatory democratic and electoral process, where they will nominate and elect their own representatives to take their issues to the city corporation and formal spaces and the next four years, they (the task force members) are given instructions on how they will function and what responsibilities they will have, and how they will work with city mayors. The combination of all these will create and formulate the policy in question in collaboration with the task force. The city youth council will also advise the mayor regarding meaningful youth presence in the planning, implementation, and monitoring of development activities in the city. Which will support the government achieve SDGs 11, and 16 at the local level.
SERAC-Bangladesh’s Program Officer Md. Nahidur Rahman, Communication Officer Mizanur Rahman Akanda, Finance Admin officer Probal Roy, Associate Admin Officer Md. Azizul Haque, Associate program Md. Shahadat Hossain Shahin and Mymensingh City’s fifty taskforce members were also present at this meeting.
