Preparation has finalized to deploy over 10 million youth in summer voluntary work, Ministry of Youth and Sport said.
The Summer voluntary work held for two months every year, has been contributing much to the ongoing development of the nation.
Ministry Communication Head Nasir Leggesse told The Ethiopian Herald that 10.7 million youth will be engaged in various sectors based on their profession, skills, abilities and inclinations. The volunteers will participate in environmental protection, city beautification, road and bridge construction,tutorial programmes, adult education, seedling plantation, blood donation, health care, farming and other socioeconomic activities.
The volunteers, who are committed to offer voluntary services to their communities are drawn from high schools, colleges and universities..
“Orientations will be given to the volunteers by the Ministry and their respective regions,” he added.
The volunteers will also participate in social mobilization, awareness raising, harmful traditional practice prevention, alerting the youth on the impact of drugs, migration prevention, traffic and food security services, professional consultancy and other social security services, he emphasized.
Of the 10.7 million volunteers, 2,35 million will be deployed to the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ State. The 3.8 and 2.7 million volunteers will be sent to Oromia and Amhara States respectively.
The budget needed for executing the project will be covered by the Federal and State governments, he said.
The Ministry is also working with due focus towards handling the impacts of drug addiction and emerging harmful external cultural influences as these are social challenges to the nation.
While elucidating Ministry’s current activity, Mattias said, the Ministry with the aim of creating a better place for the youth, is building youth centers across the nation, which could help the youth to spend their time at sport activities, reading and other leisure activities”
To this effect, nearly 10 million birr has allocated to equip Centers with the necessary facilities, he said.
As an information released from the Ministry stated, between the years, 2010 – 2016 only, over 65.9 million thousands of voluntary youths had engaged in volunteer services across the country in both summer and winter seasons.