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 1st 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 21st
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.
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