The project entitled ‘Model Assemblies’ carried out by Youth in Federal Discourse (YFD) has reached top 30 of the World Justice Challenge. The theme for this year’s challenge is “The Rule of Law: Foundation of Democracy, focusing on effective strategies for strengthening the rule of law to reverse autocracy and rebuild trust in democratic governance.”
There are 5 categories of the challenge and 6 finalists are selected in each category. The project from YFD came under ‘Youth Engagement’ category. They will be traveling to USA to showcase their project in August the 2024 at the American Bar Association Annual Meeting in Chicago. Five winning projects will each receive a $20,000 cash prize and opportunities to network and build their global profile throughout the year.
The project was launched in 2019 and it has been in operation since then. YFD has conducted more than 25 Model Assemblies in the past 5 years reaching more than 2000 youths.
The Model Assembly project engages youths in a 2 days’ workshop followed by the mock Assembly. The project is self-sustaining as each program is funded by the high-schools, colleges, and universities, that wants to conduct the program. In the program, they are familiarized with the basics of legislation, parliamentary functions, importance of election and a vote, role of elected representatives, procedural aspects of parliament and contemporary issues. The major objective of the project is to instill democratic values among youths and eventually, contribute to the cultivation of informed voters as well as potential representatives in the coming days.
