Association to engage youth in water selling business

Area 50 Water Users Association (WUA) in Lilongwe says it will soon start engaging the youth in the water-selling business, as one way of helping the youth to have something to do that would make them remain financially independent.

Area 50 WUA Board Chairman, Senior Chief Chitukula, said that his association has decided to embark on the development after being concerned with a high number of youth who are staying idle at Area 50 and its surrounding areas.

“A lot of youth from within the area which our association operates they have nothing to do as the result they do engage themselves in bad practices such as vandalism and theft of our water supplying equipment including meters and pipes.

“In order to deal with this issue, as an association, we have thought wise to start employing youth to be of the team responsible for selling water in our kiosks in order to keep them away from doing bad practices as well as helping them to be economically independent,” Senior Chief Chitukula said.

He added that Area 50 WUA currently owns over 120 water kiosks and the association is planning to put in additional kiosks in communities around Area 50 and its surrounding areas in order to accommodate more youth to be working in the kiosks.

According to him, for the past years they have been employing women to be selling water in kiosks and youth including boys and girls have not been given a chance to take part in water selling.

He also said that apart from employing the youth his association will continuously fund football trophies and other sports competitions which will be strictly for the youth so that they should always find themselves busy and shun doing bad practices.

The Board Chairman expressed confidence that once their ideas have been successfully implemented, cases of robbery and vandalism would be reduced at area 50 and its nearby areas.

“We are quite sure that if our initiatives have been successfully implemented our youth will no longer be involved in bad practices such as robbery and vandalism and cases of such malpractices would be reduced within the locality in which our association is working,” he said.

In his comment, one of the Councilors working in the area where Area 50 WUA operates, Patrick Makumba who is responsible for Maria Ward, hailed Area 50 WUA for its gesture saying that engaging the youth in economic activities is the best to approach towards creating better communities in the country.

National Youth Council of Malawi (NYCOM) Public Relations Officer, Yvonne Sundu, also applauded Area 50 WUA for its plans.

“As NYCOM we are happy that different organizations and associations in the country are taking up different initiatives that seek to develop the country while at the same time to empower the youth to remain economically independent.

“Similarly as a council, we are delighted with the plans which Area 50 WUA want to undertake and we are calling more associations and organizations to also do the same so that at the end of the day they should assist in addressing the issue of high unemployment rate among the youth in the country,” Sundu said.