PRESIDENT MUSEVENI URGES YOUTHS TO AVOID INTOXICATION TO PROMOTE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

School going Children also participated in a peace march

By Peter Ssuuna.

President Museveni has urged the youth to stay healthy so they can do meaningful work for the development of their families and their country.

He delivered this message through the Minister for Youth and Children Affairs, Balaam Barugahara, who represented him as the chief guest at an event organized by youth to mark a peace walk for restoring and maintaining peace in the country.

Museveni encouraged them to avoid reckless and immoral lifestyles, such as drunkenness, smoking cigarettes, reckless sexual behavior, and other habits that can lead to disease and many other problems.

He asked them to be innovative in their homes and in Uganda, if they remain in good health. In addition to staying healthy and getting an education, he said the youths must also adhere to the correct ideology and principles that will lift their country toward development and stability. 

Balaam with the Voice of Peace committe in a picture.

He added that they must also avoid sectarianism and tribalism. He commended the organization Voices of Peace and its leader, Ian Kikomeko, for mobilizing youth from across the country with the aim of promoting unity among them and guiding them to drive economic change and improve living conditions in their homes, as well as to develop Uganda. 

He said that the NRM believes in the potential of the youth to contribute to national development, if they can remain healthy and receive proper education and correct ideological orientation. The NRM government remains focused on building a young workforce that is healthy, educated, skilled, and ideologically upright. NRM’s actions to promote access to immunization against deadly diseases have reduced infant mortality rates. 

NRM youth have been fully immunized; this explains the population increase from 14 million Ugandans in 1986 to 46 million people today. Similarly, life expectancy has increased from 43 years in 1986 to 65 years now, Museveni explained. “We are now reaping the benefits of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE) programs that were launched earlier. The literacy rate in Uganda now stands at 80%, up from 43% in 1986,” he added. 

Some of the participants in a peace march in Kampala.

Kikomeko, chairperson of Voices of Peace, thanked the president for standing firm to maintain peace in the country and pledged that, as youth, they will continue to stand for the things that preserve peace throughout the nation. 

Assisted by a band and traffic police officers, they marched through Kampala’s streets peacefully, displaying various placards reading “embracing peacekeeping is important” and other messages aimed at stabilizing peace in the country.