In the end of June, YPM sent 22 young people to participate in the Festival of East Africa cup held at Moshi – Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The festivals took part between 28th June and 03rd July 2016.
Among the group, ten are in arts group and 12 are in the under 16 boys’ football team. This time, once again we did not manage to send the girls team. They still need to train more and get local competition to stand for the bigger events. In general the motivation for girls’ football teams is in need of boosting. Historically this is the third year since YPM begun to participate in this East African Cup festival. The participation has always been a big gist to our youth; it has helped young people learn through various seminars offered throughout the week of the festival.
Through this participation, YPM team has managed to show that they are not only for participation but more also to compete in a peaceful spirit of building a network of peace supporters. The team managed this year once again to reach the quarter finals. This is a great success as compared to the first year when we were defeated in early stages. Like last year, we managed to send a team of younger but high spirited youths. They have shown that we can compete, we can challenge one another and while doing so keep peace in the number one agenda of our activities, sports and programs. This is possible among our circles but even more a phenomenon that can be applied in international negotiation cycles as well as business rounds.
YPM arts group is a group that provides education through theater performance. They use art to warn, teach, encourage and entertain. They managed this time to teach on the effects of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Though not a direct theme in YPM, but in the sense of being the voice of many who suffer through such practices they managed to send in a point of rights for young girls wherever they are and in whatever part of the country or part of the world.
On 30 YPM that was when the arts group to got chance to perform. Different to other groups that were having traditional songs, YPM arts group made a play which was also having traditional songs to color the message presented. It was such an attractive, entertaining and educative performance that left many with need to get to know more of YPM.
In this festival there were various seminars in which young people got chance to be highlighted and learning new things. In the seminars the following were given the priority for this festival:-
1. Stop Poverty
2. Leadership
3. Law of the game
4. Coaching
5. WASH
Also there was the training of media in which John Kunguru represented YPM. He managed to share and learn on
1. Filming
2. Animation
3. Cartoon
Despite some challenges that were promised to be addressed as we go on, the festival was a wonderful platform to share talents, to learn and to educate one another. Keep Alive East African Cup. YPM on behalf of the host committee and the sponsors would like to congratulate all the young people who were involved and give honor to represent different Organizations; congratulate those who kept high the standards of good discipline and for the great work they are doing.
