info@waycouncil.org
9 - 5 andar Praia Achada Santo Antonio BP 396 - A Cape Verde
WAYC was formed in 2014 to serve as the commanding height of all youth movements in West-Africa. With decades of its existence, the organization has made a lot of monumental gains and achievements since its formation.
As a regional youth organization, WAYC set for itself such objectives as the integration of youth and student movements for the overall socio-economic development of the continent and pan-Africanism, defending students’ and youths rights, improvement of equity, democratization and equal access to education at all levels, and the fostering of academic freedom, freedom of research, autonomy of higher institutions of learning, the promotion of democratic culture amongst its various peoples,raise awareness of young people with regard to west africa issues, encourage active ecowas citizenship and motivate students to get engaged in Africa politics,promote international understanding, create a framework for intercultural dialogue and support the diversity of ideas and practices,Contribute to the development of the own personality of ecowas youth,to work hand in hand with ecowas commission.
WAYC is governed by the Congress, Executive Committee and the Secretariat. The congress is the supreme organ of WAYC and attended by all full and associate member organizations. Members with consultative status and all other invited guests are observers. It is convened every three years.
The WAYC sources of finances are Annual Membership dues, contributions, or donations from member organizations, friendly organizations, government, institutions and subvention from Ecowas States Governments. It also carries out fund-raising activities. The secretariat accepts material and financial assistance provided they are not given on conditions contrary to the interest of WAYC.
West Africa youth council have long played a key role in promoting African development, especially during and since many of the liberation struggles. Student unions have contributed energy, skills, and vision to their continent. However, the African student movement has not yet had the opportunity for a full discussion of African issues, in the context of such major issues as access to education for all, African Renaissance, leadership and good governance, HIV/AIDS and malaria, and the new challenges of Global terrorism .
If West Africa must move forward and be successful, especially in the area of education, the involvement of student organizations, and many other sectors of civil society, is crucial. Although the Youth movement is always working to build a united front for the renewal of development and democracy throughout the continent, there remain many questions about how several policies of the ECOWAS will be operationalized, from both an economic and political point of view. Will the organs of civil society find space within the ECOWAS? Who will define democracy and good governance? How will long-term conflicts be solved? How will the external debts be addressed? Will public education suffer while private education expands? How will access to education be improved, at all levels? Will learning technologies and other technologies be made available? How would this affect the quality of education? Who will make up and benefit from partnerships for African development? How will Malaria, Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other devastating diseases be addressed? Who will fund the initiatives required for West African development? All these questions and others still run through our mind
The aims and objectives of the West Africa Youth Council/Parliament are to:
Raise awareness of young people with regard to West Africa issues, encourage active Ecowas citizenship and motivate students to get engaged in Africa politics.
Promote international understanding, create a framework for intercultural dialogue and support the diversity of ideas and practices.
Contribute to the development of the own personality of West African youth
To work hand in hand with Ecowas commission and represent African youths on any summit where policies affecting the region is discussed and paramount
To tackle plights faced by West-African Youths by providing a youth interactive front, and garnering resources for development of education, students and youth.
The essence of having partner institutions is to ensure that like-minded institutions have the opportunity and privilege to become a part of our various activities that are designed yearly by the development team. As a council/Parliament, we wish to promote economic development programs of youths therefore we will have a memorandum of understanding with various institutions across the sub region. Furthermore, we will be seeking to work with key inter-governmental institutions on projects and activities of relevance such as the African Union Commission, United Nations, Commonwealth, Agence de FranÇais amongst others.
Implementing Partnership: Since our membership is drawn from all across West Africa, we are able to act as implementing partners on diverse activities and we have a team of exceptional professionals who can obtain outstanding results in the field.
Advisory Partnership: We provide expert advise on project implementation for young institutions as well as provide specific data and information on youth related issues when requested.
Consultancy Partnership: With this kind of partnership, WAYC becomes a planning and strategic outline partner who can be able to map out strategies that can be quite useful in enhancing the desired goals and results.
As an institution, 2017-2019 will be used to popularize the mandate and focus of the council. In this vein, we will work on hosting key seminars, webinars, conferences, conventions and workshops that can help promote the overall goal of the group. We will be using this timeframe to build partnership with institutions such as the Federation of Young Economists in West Africa, Africa Youth Commission, Pan African Youth Parliament and many more in which we can collaborate on ending major issues such as youth unemployment and driving the not too young to contest. We will also use the United Nations Model Conferences to enhance the modus operandi of the council which will be quite instrumental to our members.
As part of our work, we aim at having empowered youths who can become economic examples that are quite capable of providing the pace of development that they want hence actualising the words of the Africa we want.
As an institution, we work with youths of diverse ethnic origin, vocation and political ideology.