a members with the secret on you. ah, what people have to say matters to us. mm. that's why we listen to their stories reporter every weekend on d. w. hello, wherever you're watching us from. welcome to another edition of the 77 percent you . i am eddie micah junior and i have the pleasure of being your host with, you know, it's no secret that africa is a youthful continent. that's what the show is all about. in sierra leone,

for example, 80 percent of the population is under the age of $55.00. and they all trying to sort out the futures from education to careers and maybe even political ambitions. but is that government actually doing enough to empower this massive young generation? my colleague heated kamani went to free town to find out more in a st debate with the youth. hello and welcome to the 77 percent were here at the prince of will school in free town. the capital of sterile yawn. and in this country, 8 out of every 10 people is under the age of 35. i had to look that number up again because it's unbelievable. 80 percent of the population are within the 77 percent. but the question we want to ask today is, is the government doing enough to not just empower this youth, but also make them competitive globally? who better to answer that question for me than in some thoroughly unions. and i want to begin with harder because you've had the opportunity to not to study abroad,

but also have an enterprise here. so perhaps you can give me based on your experience. do you think that the youth in this country have been unable to empowered enough to basically be part of the global community? they are only well as of a few months ago. there were only 3 disciplines in sierra leone when you go to high school. so there's the arts, the commercial and science, and based on my grades, when i saw the becca examination, which is the examination you take before you go to high school, i had a good grade. so i ended up in a science because every smart person is supposed to be a doctor. and most of the things where we're taught in school, we're not really practical, it was all fury. i learnt about animals in your system so i never got to see it and everything i, lance was basically just theoretical. and i really struggle with these when i got a scholarship to study in norway, in 2015. i to classes like chemistry and biology and in all the experiments which

were very practical, i was really struggling and my grades were not reflecting on the education system that i received in sierra leone was really smart here. and i went there, i realized i was just not exposed to this form of learning. let's ask the innovator who's actually standing right next to you mohammed. so you're one of the people who's not just creating employment, but also creating solutions for the use case earlier. so tell us briefly what you do and if what 100 saying is receptive of your experience. yes. so oh, for me here in cl unifirst for want to not as clear, we young people are, are willing to solve problems and take our initiatives to the next stage. but one thing that is also missing is the fact that we don't have the eco system we are weak drive and then succeed for my own initiative. i've been able to empowered about through only a young people in my defend initiative, wish to engage initiatives on power over 20 communities using wished to energy. sometimes we wish we are stuck in it. we as we out,

we have our ideas and then we'll see, does this ideas have potential to really grew? are we from it wound the community that we've started? it's but it's talk because there are no supports really um skill up to the next stage. and he was secure funding. okay, 44. we get to the challenges. let me, let me go to he is daniel. because we're talking about some of the impediments that come about, particularly after graduating the university. and i know finances was one of the key ones for you. is it normal or is it a normal occurrence for young people yet to stop there? tertiary education because they simply no, but there is no school fees. um i got malcolm in 2016. whether there is no support financially for me to follow medication. so i decided to move with m santo wishes to allow telecommunication as a serious injury for me just to support medication. and i was working there for the past 6 years. there is no support. i think there's no with and there's no

parliament like one. it is an individual, right? i was move i said with this is very good. i said i need to walk mom it to push this initiative and it's very good. it will empower me and i was open to do engineering rains. i city more. there is a pleasure. is that of miss it's in of to support my mother. okay. all right, so let me speak to doctor coming here for a 2nd because she is the director of research if i'm not mistaken, of for delivery and delivery in the ministry of finance. so it sounds to me like, you know, the government has a great initiative in place, which is free primary education rather free education for all. but then after that, what next? that's what we're hearing. they're left to their own devices. do you think that's true from where you're standing? the thing is. yes. for years we've been focused on traditional education. that's the reality. but now we're transitioning unseen the awareness and how people approach technical vocational training and the need for him to be know,

sheep and how he doesn't need to be just one second or you half in one calling to serve. you can serve in multiple ways. you can be a doctor and still be an entre printer, you can bring it up, you know, and then advocate. so having that platform or crating, those systems in which of them are these, they thought and ideas, know they lobby and create set is just that we need to scale up and find ways to accelerate the creation of those spaces. yes, government has v m freak m quality education program for per m primaries. m primary junior, secondary senior, secondary school. but then it's how we form linkages with other sectors and other players that also jiving changing these spaces. we have those and just working towards m and power in girls, those working towards our even driving entrepreneurship. and it's is how we can accelerate efforts to bring all of this together and approach this problem in a systematic way. so not working in silos, then we can be able to live for all right. let me ask catch up because you talked about free and also quality education. you spoke earlier about the differences in

how education is passed down. do you think that the quality of education, what is being taught the back here is enough? i always say one thing i am personally not the free kind of person. and that's my personal opinion because i, you don't think education should be for, i felt sure be accessible and affordable for everyone. because when it's free right now, only to poor people can send your kids to like goldman school. i want it to be a, and i want to be, i want to be involved in sierra leone, where the local trader and a minister can senior kids to the same school because they can afford it. so you have to put the systems in place. what a people taking this children to school. i was part of the for education system. when i was in secondary school, my school fees were 60000 leon's, i got it every was reimbursed me for 45000 loans. but my textbooks were up to a 1000000 and that my parents found, had to, you know, afoot and i feel like with education is not just tuition is so much more involved.

and these are the things i didn't have access to, especially as somebody who was in secondary school. and i was privileged enough because i had access to all these textbooks and stuff which made me really smart student. but then there were other kids who couldn't afford it. that mohammed said like, sorry, then, like daniel said, he, he couldn't get to college and honestly it, it's sad because he was smart and he still smart. but how many of daniels are out there? how many of daniels don't have his privilege to be on tv? i know daniels i have lived with daniels. i have gone to school with daniels. i come from a community of daniels. okay. now, earlier we also talked about access. let's also focus on the danielle's, the girls via her and the women in this community. do you think this equal opportunities for them within the context of thoroughly on if i'm dreaming him and using my feminist demand imagination and been optimistic, i will say we can compete. we have access, but the reality is we can't, we don't have access. i've been in

a situation where at the age of 16 i got pregnant and i mean i school and the next thoughts in my head was, if i'm not going to go through school with this pregnancy, i'm going to kill myself. that's because for years, pregnant girls were not given the permission to go to school, they became was julie bola outbreak will, over 14000 girls became pregnant and all of them were kicked out of school. so for me, access is very important and access is not just, i'm from the font face, say we have free quality education. access is making sure that the system work for girls. and i'll say, progresses me, lake is been done because the people of desolation led the, the most radical campaign i've seen in my life. and that's the campaign for brit pregnant girls to be in school. we've seen all of the progress we've that women girls, young people, we saw that girls over tics out of school during the bola outbreak. they stood up for their rights to education. so we've had a situation where the now you're described by joseph in there which sounds almost

utopian and was actually successful. but eric, working with people on the ground as a journalist and with a youth program, i'm sure that the stories you hear are wildly different from what we're hearing from joseph. and can you tell me what young people express to you as their biggest challenges in this country? we talk about the issues of educational issues of employment. it is quite perceived in a different way as it is been perceived in the lenses of the powers that made. so when you go to the place now to tell you about employment, but you see a lot of young people out there who are not employed in a situation. sometimes you see people would not have access to all certain opportunities. they believe they have the qualifications or less they have to affiliate themselves to the powers that be. or i was listening to the points of daniel, who couldn't contribute or in school. that is the same situation when you talk to you maybe or people that are into the okada, commercial or writing which is a motorbike. yeah. some of them you find out that or they're there because they don't feel like been there. but because you don't have the opportunities or

platforms to move forward, let me come back to your doctor because we are hearing that there is a disconnect. i mean, surely the policy that you're creating behind closed doors sound wonderful, but the implementation 0 way. where, where does, where does it get lost? so if you look back at how soon as developed over the years, you knew the growth has been in start, stop, stop it, stop by then what has kept us going is how we as the people are resilient and continue to adapt and involve in how we implement design and roll up policies as joseph instead think the development of the radical inclusion policy was quite m inclusive. and we didn't have the validation to the of the implementation plan and much an evaluation plan. so it shows that as the country we will not talk in the doing things in the same always we are moving towards doing things in better and more fissions waste. so that's our whole of government approach to human capital development. not just looking at education health, and are we coach about all the factors that interlinked this vector? so if, if they were talking about enhancing and getting farmers to get more seed and fertilize

as is also linking those hammers to markets, linking them to the school, fit in program lincoln, this good for the program to the nutrition program. so it's having a whole systems approach to development. what is the thing is when you implement new policies, impact takes a while to shoot. so that's why we look at intermediate outcomes for now. that number of farmers benefits a number of children in school. we know that investments need to continue to need to be consistent. the need to be owned by every put everybody. we're now looking towards how we can not be left behind in the 40 the industrial revolution. because you've talked about the 4th industrial revolution. i must come to this because it surprised me dramatically that electricity penetration in this country is just above 20 percent. how can we be talking about robotics and big data when people don't even have access to power? so that's the thing. and when we, if we try to perceive it in the lines of this comes before the us, that, that's where we miss it. there are things that we can do together. and we can do

that in more efficient with let's as the person who's already doing it, mohammad, we're hearing here that it's possible to both be waiting for power supply and still innovate is as true, or is the dr dreaming you're wanting to disclose? we already have seen moliere that walks in different contexts. yeah. people are develop solutions that can actually be replicated. i can be scaled up. we have, as you said, i literally just above 20 percent access to energy. we have wind mills that we locally fabricated. all we need is one to scalable solutions and replicate for more communities. we develop hydro generator just from scrubs. all the solutions can solve our energy crisis, but the causes them does not provide a asta approaching institute of our coma took was caleb and then compete for the rest of the world. i know got my, my city, i restricted with funding unless other areas and the wants of pirates. i said, so spas. energy is needed. and speaking of i know that you already solving those problems. i want to ask cellar to give me this one of your innovations. can you explain what this is? because you're trying to solve the problem of energy in this country?

yes. our from in our driveway. hundreds, very excited. she's clapping for years. so i decided to use waste marty us to build the 1st d v antenna just from scratch. oh, and it's from scrubs. and then i've been able to use this to install in over 2000 community to 1000 households. all of this can be scaled up and it can be replicated across depend domains and we are so be our own problem with our own solutions within mid in civilian. so all we need is the platform to, for us to really succeed in these ventures. and then be the next l m max of africa be the next bill gates from africa, which we already of cindy's potentials. all right, i want to hear from eric because we've heard that the rural community than the youth in the rural areas are experiencing vastly different challenges from the ones being faced here in the city. can you tell me what some of those are? okay, so we say for it on is not syria and this is quite common taken from what he was saying earlier. everything is actually centralized in freetown. so when you have

access to certain opportunities for young people, maybe you look at internet penetration. even those hinder or city do not have access to very much or better internet access. now when you go to the rural area, maybe the kind of university or whatever we have, everybody wants to come to freight on coming to probably college going to the college of medicine. of course we have july or the ones that are now doing, you know, to that point, but we need more things that are to be published or decentralized. we don't need every team to be around freetown, also another keeping that you need to take into consideration when we talk about many things like female or gender impairment issues. you find out that many of the people you see there are a champion in this causes probably they are within the city. so how most more can we try to, which are people in orders or areas are right? i speaking of women, i have to come back to josephine because you've been accused of making all the

noise only here in the center. ah festival. do you agree with that assessment? and if it through what can be done to penetrate the knowledge, the information, the wealth of civil owens are correct. that points because of the work i do is across the country. so the poor courts, positive noise is a very i'm is, is, is really fully across the country. the walk i do at papa school is making sure that while $17000.00 out of school girls were living in rural communities, who somehow a pregnant will be left out of it because of the system that perpetually discriminates, their access to education, that we roam safe spaces for them, this is a place as i tell you when i walk in rural communities. i see that the only thing of some of these girls have at the same spaces growing up. oh girl in this country is a challenge, is a struggle. all right, let me ask cara if people are being responsive because as the woman who's in a position of leadership, i imagine you going to stand in front of

a council of men to tell them about something. do you think they would listen to you? you know, we're being told that we need to do things differently. you could want that you might be doing it, but is the country ready? i'm going to talk a lot about this patriarchy because i work with ministration. i work with reusable sanitary pads. i remember the 1st time i pitched all a bunch of men in new jersey guesses in the west. they said to me, oh, you sound like ellen mosque, maybe this will come true. it's not because they believed in me, but because they were telling me i was been delusional. but however, a year later, when i developed my product and again, pitched in front of a judge, a panel of men, many of them didn't understand my product. and many of them were just shying away from the topic. and again, i just said, we live in a world where majority are women. and if we as men or we as a society and not addressing issues affecting half of the population, how are we going to like make progress, danny?

oh no, daniel. once more to mohammed, i have a question for you. which, you know, i'm just wondering if you're also suffering from the same predicament where you're going to a banker and telling them about your great innovation. but they're simply from another generation, are you facing the sort of challenge? exactly. so it's it, i know didn't know the problem, the know what to do, but because the mindsets are different and the up approach to problems are difference less every star, some people will even prefer by in 2000 antennas, are brought done by the localised sauce, the ones that are cheaper on that if they did mention of the kindly get us as an itself. so it says sometimes difficulty with sicilian support in saline on businesses. even though we have the opportunity, thanks to look our content, that gives us the opportunity to have touch at present to representation of local mid product in all business places. but even our doubts, how many loaners actually been selling on business? there was the, i didn't know you guarantee it is not it, not so by monday to wants inputted thinks, but it's 6 time for them to really,

really see that what we're doing. we bring in values to saloon. so what can be done then? i mean, if mohammed is already doing his bit, he is creating innovation, and cyril unions are turning back on it. if harder is been sanitary towels and people are saying, hey, you're a woman, you don't know what to do. so how, how does this country move forward? with the truth, so i think everything us do with collective responsibility. we all need to work together as a team. and also sometimes we do have the last what the implementation is lacking. so how about if we promote each other's young people? now we know that mama discrete in this one, it's a good thing that i realize our members on the panel were asking about the price cuz he wanted to support him. this is a good venture. we need to do this and also us the media. i think one of my key responsibility is over the years has been, or crates in stories or covering stories about young people involved into innovation, making them on an international platform. i've covered all stories in the past or by young people doing all some or mean technological developments,

innovations under rest. so we need to work together as a, as a team. another key thing about the issues of gender, this is quite very important. women are been facing so many challenges have been talking to them in the past when you want to get a particular project, you know, been approved or whatever it is. you know, there's this whole issue of, i mean having probably affairs with women as, as institution is, which is quite but, and, or does or something doesn't need another discussion anyway. okay, so doctor kim, i want to come back to you because we've had a lot of things that might make one depress. you know, i, electricity not available. internet penetration, very low education, quality, questionable. but it's not all gloom and doom. is it? no slower? yeah. so 1st of all, our, to the, asked the young person in government, i wear that hat because i think it's my responsibility as a citizen, to me, to be in space this way i can drive positive positive change. so in my role as director of research and delivery,

that's what i do. i'm under take research and advice and all. and i have to say that i put forward the best advice and when you're making decisions, of course, you have to look at different factors that those, that need to be politically correct. that does have to do with the resources that are available. what my belief is that in continued in surface is making sure that we have a critical mass of change makers. so that's what we have here. and it's why i'm participating in this for what we need to do is we need to revisit the way we formed our development. cuz we're always talking about m financial enclosure and getting entropy. no sheep. now we of course we in and putting money into incubators and accelerators, but then we work with development partners also. and it always seems to be, it's more about a numbers game around number of beneficiaries than impact. so i was just saying, what if consider instead of giving each person a $1000.00 that would not r m adequately empower them to scale to that level. they can employ as many people and then gets to that church that they can actually make contributions to the taxes

. them a vast source, invest in that 100000, say to 2 business is back and get them to scale. employ 500 people, amick. absolute adequate m contributions to the tax system. ok. let's get to joseph in because we've heard about solutions that are already working examples that are already creating critical change. of course, one of the things that yoga positions does is, has done exactly that. what more can be done? i think the most important thing to loads east as we continue these fights, we should continue to speaker. we should not get lengths. and as we speak up, we should so more massey, because at some point when i walk in on, on the streets of frito while across this country. and i hear the way men refaxed to women. and i had to wear the leaders of our country. talk about women, sometimes you just have to treat them with grace because you know they level of in ignorance, that needs to be walked on an hour speaking, not only in this phases. and he thinks that is making sure that awareness has been

raised in making sure that we continue to walk. 40 things that are force. okay. and danny are we said earlier that there are many daniels who we know in this community? what is your message to them? because i mean, you might not have achieved your dream of going into engineering school, but you've made something of yourself. i just want to give one of our most visual givea for sure to go and try to that diversify certain things. in fact, when i was not able to follow medication, i find ways to register them. well, well, i'm looking for their group mercer both financial to follow my goals and a lot of business ideas and a lot of experience. okay. hodge. i, we started with you. i'd like to conclude with you. what do you think lies ahead for the use of this country? i asked if they're able to compete globally. i wonder if you as a has changed i think after hearing all this, i strongly stand on my answer because i see daniel here saying i reach out to

people. you're supposed to help me like in an ideal world, they're not supposed to help you to resources are supposed to be there to help you . we don't even have systems where you can take loans and go to college. and after you get a job, you pay that back when they were talking about people in the rural communities, is how sierra leone is like, literally, globally. this is how we stand. don't, don't tell me i need to compete in the global market when i can't even compete with countries like kenya and gonna look at what ronda is due in senegal, in 2035, they're going to have so much energy from solar. and here we are looking at countries like the u. s. in england. we have to stop that. let's compete locally, instead of like globally. and i think one step at a time what local solution we can get there wants to put a time, i like that. and i think that's also a great place for us to end. at the beginning of this debate, i asked if the serial union use

a set up to compete globally. and i think the answer we've had repeated over and over again is in good time. thank you for watching. most of our powerful an interactive debate, wasn't it? i mean, you can understand the passion with which the youth we're talking because look, the future of africa is in the hands of the youth. and so they need to push for what they need to be at the top. this is where we draw the cantons, on this edition of the 77 percent. we hope you enjoy the program and maybe even gave you a few issues to ponder over. we love it when you keep the conversation going. so drop us a line on facebook, instagram or youtube, or you can send us an email at 77 at dw dot com. as always, let's play the shoe out with the truck fresh from nigeria. ricardo banks. widow zoom back in by the way. i am eddie micah, julia, thanks for your time. oh

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