The 'Democracy Bus' hits the roads of Yei County
Thirteen civil society organizations in Greater Yei (Morobo, Lainya and Yei Counties) are playing a key roll in informing the public about the importance of voting. They are educating people in the region about civic and voter registration processes.
Mr Eric Moses of the Yei Resource Centre
According to Mr. Eric J. Moses, the programme manager for Yei Resource Centre, one of the Civil Society Organisations in Yei, their target is to reach and directly motivate the thousands of eligible voters in the region. They have just recently launched the ‘Democracy Bus.’ The bus is four days on the road and civic educators commute from their base in Yei to different sub counties and villages (commonly known as payams and Bomas) on the bus. Their target is to reach twenty different locations (payams) in the region and up to twenty five thousand people. In a period of one month they will be performing forum theaters, debate cards, board games, mock elections exercises, music, dance, civic education, information stands, public debate contests with prizes being given to the winners and dissemination of materials with drawings showing democracy messages. According to the concept note, sharing experiences and materials with one’s family members and friends will help them (Civil Society Organisations) attain their target of connecting with 25,000 people by 12th March 2010.
The thirteen civil societies involved in this activity always involve people, who are within their area of operation in discussions about elections. They are enlightening people about the upcoming general elections. Through the local leaders in the payams and bomas the civil societies gather people in small groups of ten, twenty, fifty or even a hundred. “We do not only provide necessary basic information about the up coming elections, but we go an extra mile by making the exercise participatory in order to create confidence in people. This will help them cast their votes confidently without fear.”
He says their objective is to create a sense of responsibility amongst people especially women and young people as far as the forthcoming elections are concerned. “Voters, particularly women and young people should constructively and critically get engaged in the campaign and election processes in their respective communities,” he added.
According to Mr. Moses, The Institute of Civil Society Yei (IPCS) and the Yei Resource Center are the leading partners in preparing and packinging awareness materials for disemination in the communities. 'These two are the mainimplementers of the project,' he said.
In the interview in his office Mr. Moses said: “We have forty full time civic educators. It is this group of skilled youths who work tirelessly as they struggle to provide the basic information on civic and voting exercises. They are doing tremendous work. They normally respond to the questions in these communities. Many thanks to our international partners such as Danish Association for International Co-operation or MS Sudan, too. They have always stood with us in all hurdles. But above all things, MS Sudan has done a great deal in funding this project,” Mr. Moses concluded.
