Af Ran Lunn Aung, MMDP Youth Project Coordinator
Dansk Institut for Flerpartisamarbejde, DIPD, har sat gang i et projekt, der skal hjælpe de politiske partier i Burma med at engagere unge i politik. Efter mange års militærstyre åbner landet i disse år op mod omverdenen og for befolkningens rettigheder.
On the first day, His Excellency Union Minister U Soe Thein delivered a speech on “Role of Youth in Myanmar Political System”. The Minister said, “They [youths] also should offer a hand to work in the political arena as a step towards the country’s development.”
He also mentioned that the government is considering to establish a Ministry for Youth Affairs and he invited the DIPD Senior Adviser Hanne Lund Madsen and the MMDP team to visit his office for further talks.
The event is the first time for youths from political parties of Burma to have such a forum on youth engagement in political parties.
“This topic and this audience are so special that I accepted the invitation to give a talk in this seminar though I am quite busy these days,’ said Ko Ko Gyi of 88 Peace and Open Society, while he was giving a talk on “Myanmar youth in politics – why now!”
In consultations with political parties it became clear that promoting the role of youth in political parties is a high priority where the former regime’s repressive rule disenfranchised youth from politics, despite their historical leadership in liberation movements of Burma.
Experiences from Denmark
In the seminar the participants shared challenges and ideas among youth in political parties in Burma and they also benefitted from the experiences from two youth politicians from Denmark on building strong youth wings and inter-party youth dialogue.
Mr. Morten Dahlin and Ms. Ditte Søndergaard moreover shared tools for communication with the youth and in particular on how to make politics relevant to the youth.
The seminar offers a unique forum through which youth party members and other youth have the opportunity to exchange and discuss issues of shared concern and national importance and engage in dialogue on key challenges and opportunities in further deepening Burma’s democratic processes.
The background document of the seminar was the DIPD guide “How to Build a Youth Wing”, which has been translated into Burmese language and distributed to the seminar participants.
At the seminar, the youth identified the challenges they are faced with.
“We are not in decision-making positions because the senior party members often do not have confidence in us. And most parties don’t have specific department for youth and the party leadership tend not to utilize the resources and skills youth have,” said a participant at a workshop.
They also mentioned the requirement that they have to declare “No participation in party politics” when they are admitted to a university or a taking a job. Moreover, political engagement is still to some extent surrounded with fear of repression.
CC Nawja of Kachin National Congress for Democracy (KNCD) expressed his appreciation of the seminar:
“What has been presented here is very good. The seminar has created a place for political parties to meet together. It is like a political ground for youths. Thank you to the programme management team of DIPD to arrange the Q&A sessions, which give us a chance to have interactive discussions.”
“Thank you for organizing this event. It is like “taking us into the light out of the darkness,” said Salai Mg Mg Win, Assistant General Secretary, of Asho Chin National Party (ACNP).
From ideas to action
On the first day of the seminar, a number of presentations regarding the six chapters mentioned in the youth guide were presented and panel debates involving both Burmese and international speakers were conducted.
On the second day, more in-depth workshops on the seminar themes were conducted to identify next steps both for the parties individually and jointly and for the youth project of the Myanmar Multiparty Democracy Programme.
Daw Nan S Ke Moe of Shan Nationalities Development Party (SNDP) voiced her concern:
“I would like events like this to happen more in future because it is difficult for political parties to organize such events and they cannot sponsor this kind of event. This event is the first time for youth of political parties and thus gives time only to share and learn from each other. I hope we can move on to the next steps in next events and discuss action plans for what and how we can cooperate in future”.
MMDP will prepare a seminar report on key points raised by the participants and share it with the political parties and the minister later in June and use this as guidance in the future activities of the project on youth in political parties.
