adminAll is set for the Day of The African Child commemorations and inauguration of the Junior Parliament in Harare today where the newly elected child president will deliver his first speech in front of thousands of children at Africa Unity Square in attendance.Just like their adult counterparts, some members of the Junior Parliamentarians, councillors and chiefs will also be there where the event will be covered live by ZBC through its YGT programme.
Speaking to CLS, Zimbabwe Youth Council, custodians of Junior Parliament, said all is set for the 22nd session of the parliament.
ZYC communications officer Innocent Katsande said the Child President’s elections were held on Thursday and all went well.
“We are done with the selection of junior parliamentarians and Child President and today it is their first session and meeting with the rest of Zimbabwe,” Katsande said.
He said they chose the new venue because they want the children to experience the parliament feel.
The Junior Parliament mirrors the National Parliament set up where the deputy speaker and Senate deputy president will retain their electoral constituencies.
Katsande said child parliamentarians were elected by popular vote. The elections are co-ordinated and monitored by an all-stakeholders’ committee chaired by ZYC.
Katsande also said they had set June 21 as the date for the official opening of the 22nd session of the Children’s Parliament of Zimbabwe.
“As we officially open the Junior Parliament, the nation will also be celebrating the belated Day of the African Child which is commemorated annually on June 16,” he said.
The event would see President Robert Mugabe gracing the event.
This year’s Day of the African Child theme was child friendly, quality, free and compulsory education for all children in Africa.
The Day of the African Child came into being following a declaration by the African Union Heads of State as an important day in the commemoration of the 1976 protests by schoolchildren in Soweto, South Africa.
The students protested against an education designed to further the purposes of the apartheid regime. The brutal response of the apartheid security agencies to the unarmed students’ protests resulted in the death of a number of children.
The 1976 protests contributed greatly to the eventual collapse of the apartheid regime. In 1991, the African Union Assembly passed a resolution designating June 16 as a day for the celebration of the African child.
The Zimbabwe Junior Parliament was established in 1991. The programme allows children to participate in the national agenda, while addressing concerns affecting children in Zimbabwe.
Junior Parliament operates as a mirror or image of Parliament and every constituency in the country has a child parliamentarian representative.
The programme has also helped to provide a platform to harness and develop leadership qualities in many young people.
Each year, children from across the country’s constituencies are elected by their peers to be representatives in the Junior Parliament. The 10 governors from each province will then compete for the presidency in an election that only junior parliamentarians participate. – CL Reporter.
Online Reporter