Plan International, Nigeria, has unveiled a 16-member Youth Advisory Panel (YAP), to create the change agenda of the nation.

The Country Director, Plan International, Nigeria, Mr Charles Usie, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday at the inauguration of the panel.

Usie said that the panel  would engage Plan International Nigeria in co-creating decision making, policy development and projects implementation.

According to him, in the last six months, Plan International Nigeria has been in the process of establishing YAP with the overall objective of engendering inclusion and participation of youths and girls in decision making process.

”Plan International as a global organisation has renewed its mandate globally and what that mandate means is that girls and young people have become the centre of what we do.

”If we want young people and girls to be at the centre, we need to bring them into our everyday operation in meaningful ways in such a way that they participate and enable us to make the right decisions in the kind of programmes and interventions we design.

”As a result we have a global mandate to bring young people deliberately into our everyday management processes.

”And so in Nigeria today what we have ended up doing is to select young people across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria and put them into like a board as an advisory panel to advice management team and board to influence our programmes,” he said.

The country director said that plan International would continue to advance the rights of children, thereby seeking for equality for girls especially in education, health, livelihood, protection and others.

Also, the Executive Director, Yiaga, Mr Samson Itodo, charged the panel to focus on ensuring the change needed to transform the country and the continent.

Itodo said that the panel should be about learning, building and making necessary change happen while also sustaining the trust repose on them by the younger generation.

”The YAP is not a job or an employment opportunities but a transformative relationship. It is not a panel for for self promotion because you do not exist for yourself.

”YAP is not an elite group or cabal often used in our political group such that you forget the actual purpose you are called for this work.

”So the biggest challenge young people have is that they don’t maximise opportunities for a long of time, so you must be ready to play your role because on your shoulder lies the hope of the youths,” he said.

Meanwhile, Miss Pelemo Nyajo, the Shadow Country Director, Plan International, Nigeria said that active participation of youths in decision making would create high level of performance for  development.

Nyajo, who is a member of YAP commended Plan International, Nigeria,  for the opportunity to serve, saying it is a step in the right direction.

”Tokenism is a huge plaque when it comes to youth participation across the country and globally, they like to put the young people at the forefront but not actually getting active participation.

”So this panel is a huge step towards meaningful youth participation because we will be actively participating and putting them on their toes and making sure that the youths are the centre of all their programmes.

”Representation is very important. Persons with disabilities are not very much represented in a lot of communities, so with the YAY, we will create impact and hopefully we can make a change,” she said.(NAN)