Aweil Center County’s newly elected youth association chairperson, Deng Guot, has called for improved education, youth empowerment, citing limited services and opportunities in the area.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Tuesday, Guot said he assumed office on Oct. 3 and would push for better education and programmes to support young people and strengthen community protection.
“Compared with other counties in the state, we are lagging behind in education. We face numerous protection challenges, and people often do not know how to report cases and seek assistance,” he said.
Guot said young people also lack access to vocational training and other development opportunities, adding that the association is ready to work with partners to introduce empowerment programmes.
Aweil Center County caretaker commissioner Peter Natale acknowledged the education challenges and called for the immediate payment of public school teachers’ salaries.
“The education standard is very poor, and we are calling for the immediate payment of public school teachers’ salaries,” Natale said, adding that the county had organised youth and women’s groups and was seeking programmes to support them.
Peter Diing Ngong, executive director of the Wider Aid and Development Agency (WADA), attributed the limited services available to young people and women in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State to humanitarian funding cuts following the suspension of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by the U.S. government.
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