The Youth Parliament practice workshop was designed to run 4
days (jestha 21 to 24) at the District Coordination Committee in Pokhara, Kaski. The
program was organized by Nepal government collaborating with youth and sports
ministry and national youth council and managed by district youth committee.
It was a really new experience for me
to participate in such a program. The
experience of preparing for and running a designed Youth Parliament is a good
opportunity to practice management skills and to learn about the past and current
situation of country. It will them to think a future plan or sustainable goals . It was all designed to be similar to the actual
running of Parliament. The participants were given 2 months to learn the
acts, constitutional law, power and rights, knowledge about parliamentary
committees, current situation of the country, governments work, incidents
happening in the country, legal and illegal works, etc. The federal parliament
of Nepal is the federal and supreme legislative body of Nepal. It is
a bicameral federal legislature that consists of
the National Assembly as upper house and
the House of Representatives, as lower house.
There were all together 32 participants, ten of them were selected
through an online test published by national youth council and the other
twenty-two were from eleven districts means two person were selected from each
district. There were five mentors from the national youth council to monitor
them. They were all organized inside hall like as parliament house. They made
up all the categories inside a regular parliament house in Nepal. The
leadership committee included the president, vice president, chairman of the
national Assembly, deputy Chairman of the National Assembly, Speaker of the
House of Representatives and Deputy Speaker.
The first relates to the concern that few young people know about:
the Commonwealth. The three core principles that bind our Commonwealth nations
together are:
• Global Consensus Building
• Support for Sustainable Development
• Support for Democracy and Growth and Sustenance of
Democratic Institutions
The Youth Parliament was designed to educate participants about
the Commonwealth and to demonstrate how Parliaments are able to:
• Make legislation
• Debate matters of national and international concern
• Demand accountability from those in government
• Discuss legislation in committee
• Change government without recourse to civil disorder
• Make and enforce their own rules of conduct
The goals of the designed youth parliament are to
visualize sustainability of youth future and enhance them to acknowledge the
parliamentary system. Some of the points are as follows:
· To
hear the voice of youth between 18 and less than 25 years of age, who are
allowed to vote but cannot stand as a candidate for election, through
deliberations in Youth Parliaments at district level and above.
· To
encourage the youth to engage with public issues, understand the common man's
point of view, form their opinions and express it in an articulate manner.
· To
develop and enhance decision making abilities.
· To
develop a respect and tolerance for the views of others.
· To
develop an understanding that respect for rules is essential for conducting any
discussion systematically and effectively.
· To
obtain and document their opinions and visions of New Nepal.
· To
share their views to policy makers to take forward.
Overall this program
was implemented to encourage young people to take an interest in
citizenship activities, specifically parliament, and improve
young people's opportunities to be heard and make a difference.
by : Anu Baskota (FK fellow 2019)
