H.E Mr. JOMO Eric, AUSC Vice President for Democracy and Participation, Nationality of Kenya

THE FORMATION, PURPOSE AND DIRECTION OF THE AFRICAN UNION STUDENTS COUNCIL (AUSC)

Having been formed by African universities students’ leaders during The International Development Students Society Youth Camp in Zanzibar on 1^st January 2016, African Union Students Council (AUSC) is a network of young people from across Africa who share an interest in Africa and want to take an active role in improving the political situation in Africa as well as fostering inter-state relations across the continent.

AUSC objectives are broad and seek to  actively engage the youth of the African continent to achieve greater unity and solidarity between the amongst them; accelerate their political and social-economic integration; establish, promote and defend sound youth perspectives on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples; encourage regional and international youth cooperation; establish youth mechanisms to promote peace, security and stability in the continent by supporting democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance;  and most importantly take active roles in the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

As the African youths, we feel Africa can move forward faster with inclusion and modern era responsible governance. Africa needs to feel the positivity of the world progress at a time when many changes need to be adopted by African nations especially in politics and governance.  The world has recorded noteworthy events in the last two decades, which include the digital revolution, major financial crises, the rise of violent extremism and terrorism, the appearance of youth protest movements and major developments facilitating effective social communication. These events have all laid new crises, standards, practices and opportunities for the global community to adapt and call upon all of us to collaborate in order to further promote sustainable economies, cultural understanding and support global human rights to achieve a more united and peaceful world.

We the African Youths acknowledge these new crises, standards, practices and opportunities and have therefore created AUSC in order to present and promote the new roles of youth in our continent to support the global community as well as support the initiatives of our national governments to further promote youth related issues and concerns.

As AUSC, we promote the use of various youth related forums as a basis for advancing our objectives and we focus on the importance of youth assembly as tool in addressing the array of complex challenges that Africa faces today. AUSC seeks to conduct activities and discussions aimed at supporting the development of communication among African youths and strengthening relations between different countries and cultural groups within Africa. The continent is characterized by a myriad of different identities, cultures and traditions, and we seek to celebrate and recognize the advantages of such diversity to bring us together.

We believe that African nations need to give their citizens more freedom and advance electoral transparency in order for the real voices of people to speak and be heard. As young people of Africa, we agree that these political situations are unacceptable and are critical of the fact that elections in Africa are still marred by violence, unequal opportunities and mistreatment of oppositions, open rigging and both forceful and silent retention of power by some African leaders.  We are concerned that the voices that matter; those of the common citizens, the youth, women and children are still being ignored by the insensitive actions of the ruling class. As the youth, our hearts are broken that such things still happen in the 21^st Century and we seek to use AUSC to mobilize ourselves to cause ripples that will end such vices.

As AUSC, we are confident that our contribution towards achieving the Africa that we need can never be small. We are motivated by the examples of the recent democratic and peaceful elections in Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria etc and we believe African problems can be solved by ourselves as Africans. Thus, we are confident AUSC will not only stand tall to fulfill its current objectives but equally prevent the recurrence of the crises in all places that we will succeed and that the understanding we will establish cross nations will enable us to rise forever.