The Continental Leadership Research Institute Director Mundia Hakoola says there is need for more young people to take up leadership roles.

Mr. Hakoola said the number of youths in leadership positions is low in Zambia hence the need for youths to be trained in various leadership roles.

Mr. Hakoola told ZANIS in an interview in Ndola yesterday that the Research Institute is training young people from all political parties and the community in Lusaka and Copperbelt provinces.

He explained that youths in the country are mostly used as tools of violence instead of taking up leadership roles.

“We are a platform that engage youths in issues of governance and leadership to ensure that we build their capacity in taking up leadership roles by reducing the trend of young people being used as tools of violence,” he said.

He added that the trainings are aimed at enhancing capacity of young people to participate in democratic processes by varying for public office.

“Currently from our research conducted, we have seen that out of the total 156 members of Parliament, only three are considered as youths.

Therefore, we want to ensure that youths up their game in taking up leadership positions, the importance of taking part in voting and issues of how to deal with dialogue.

You find that most of the time youths do not dialogue but engage in violent activities, that is why we are undertaking trainings for them to ensure that they know their core duty in governance issues,” he said.

And Lumuno Nyimba one of the trained youths from Ndola said the training has enlightened them on how to be responsible as young people.

“As youths, we have been very relaxed in terms of taking up leadership roles because we limit our capacity and what we can do. Hence the training has really opened up our thinking and we will be more proactive in dealing with governance issues,” she said.

She added that youth participation in leadership roles will help the country move forward as they have a lot of potential.

Ezra Mushipi another trained participate said youths have huge role to play in issues of governance.

He thanked research institute for training them and explained that he will use the information to be models of change.

He called on all the youths in the country not to be used as tools of violence even as the country heads to the polls next year.