I serve as a Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) central committee member, a position to which I was elected, and I thought this was the highest level I would serve in my political youth structure.
But as I move on I am realising that I continue to honour my pupils with faith and in return they honour me with trust.
I also serve as a country representative, and executive member of the Southern African Youth Forum (SARYF), which was initiated in 2012 to offer young African leaders an opportunity to share their vision and to discuss the way forward to contribute to democracy, social justice, and to influence politics and policies in African countries.
As a consultant and facilitator of youth leadership development programmes, I have trained over 500 youth in Namibia, with the aim to empower them with leadership skills that help promote independent thinkers with a purpose.
I have been asked to stand for the position of deputy secretary of SPYL and this is great recognition of my hard work in serving the esteemed values of our party. As a woman, I feel honoured to be approached to contest the position.
I want to remark that there is no political justification for keeping the youth poor. And I will strive to work towards economic justice in our lifetime. We have a biological weapon on our side, with 60% of the population being young people.
We need urgent intervention to deal with the plight of education, unemployment, poverty, and landlessness, if we are to restore hope for our people. SPYL was, is and always will be the vanguard of the ideals and aspirations of militant youth who know how to demand what is rightly theirs.
However in recent years SPYL has been reduced to an entity that subscribes to capitalist ideals, with some of its members using the league for self-gain.
I have served the branches as a foot soldier and this is where our oratory skills began. The bad practice of jumping structures should therefore be rejected.
As a league we should not deviate from being democratic socialists as this system is perhaps the closest way there is to humanity.
“I am because you are” should be our rallying call. After my 15 years of uninterrupted membership and of volunteering my skills, I will rededicate my efforts to rebuild and revamp the organisation, while restoring the militancy of the once vanguard league.
The likes of the previous leadership has taught me well and I will not surrender or shy away from speaking Truth to Power! The Bad thing that should never happen in SPYL is to take away democratically elected youth and suppress them.
There should be no interference in our governance structures and that is why we have an SPYL Constitution, which allows us to express ourselves as long as we operate in the ambit of being militant but do not to cause anarchy.
I will strive to put to an end to the ongoing faction fights in the Youth League because we have to move forward and allow the pioneer movement to take over the fight for the 4th Industrial Revolution.
I prevail in circumstances that say let us replace the free Condom with Free Sanitary towels; I prevail in circumstances that say we need free vocational and technical education.
I prevail in circumstances that say jobless youth should be placed in internships to fill the gap of inexperience.
I prevail in circumstances that will replace a revolution with a necessary revolution to deliver on gender empowerment but I am quick to say no to that women should be wheel-chaired into position because of their associates of rich friends who think for them.
Young women, we should all earn this position on merit, capacity and intellect and not because of regionalism, tribalism, ethnicity or associates.
I therefore, prevail in circumstances that say we must not recycle the Old leadership but let us replace it with the young leadership. Economic Justice prevails when the rural community bridge the digital gap in all 14 regions, because this makes it easier to maximise the potential of young entrepreneurs to be job creators.
Indeed, we the youth should be a necessary irritation or alternatively they forget us, and silence is the mother of all betrayal. Therefore act young and feel young!
Only logical explanation prevails when we have a youth that strives in an environment that makes us know that we will excel in all sectors of the economy regardless of where we find ourselves in an Independent Namibia.
I prevail in circumstances that ought to define the mission for Economic Justice, not the one that seeks to betray our generation. Let us seek the guidance of God in asking the knowledge of his wisdom and that way we will spiritually fight against all principles and principalities of this world. Like watertight evidence, so are we all foreigners on earth and thus we have a duty to feed the poor, provide hope for the hungry souls and end misery corruption and greed.
Therefore, I strive to bring tangible and intangible action into reality by compelling our SWAPO Led Government because they must listen to the youth. When I am there I will not forget, so be hopeful comrades and let us take charge of our own affairs.
* Tuyeni Konica Kandume
Member of the Central Committee of SWAPO Youth League Lawyer by Training