” Youth civic engagement, the foundation of development.” This is the subject of the workshop organised by the AfricTivistes community of Mauritania, supported by the association InnoVrim. This project, financed by the United States Embassy in Nouakchott, trained twenty (20) young people selected after a call for applications. They benefited from solid knowledge in self-management, civic leadership, citizen engagement, online advocacy, etc.

The AfricTivistes Civic Engagement Mauritania (ACEM) project team stayed in Rosso from 09 to 12 September 2022. A training workshop was organised on leadership and civic engagement in the village, which is about 200 km from the capital Nouakchott. For four days, the young people experienced intense sessions related to the project’s themes. 

These sessions were led entirely by trainers prepared by AfricTivistes in January 2021. Gathered in the Innovrim association, they succeeded in duplicating the AfricTivistes pedagogical programme in order to share it with the maximum of young Mauritanians. To this end, various modules were taught on: introduction to EDGE leadership: getting out of one’s comfort zone; recognition and appropriation of the civic challenge; self-management; design thinking; influence and digital campaigning; risk management, etc.

During the AfricTivistes Civic Engagement launch workshop on Friday 09 September 2022, local and state authorities from Rosso came to the workshop. They all praised this initiative and urged the young beneficiaries to seize this opportunity to have good knowledge that will enable them to initiate the economic and social development of the country.

In her speech, the coordinator of the AfricTivistes Civic Engagement Mauritania programme, Awa Seydou Traoré, said that this project is part of the Small Grant programme of the American Embassy in Mauritania. According to her, after having trained twenty (20) young people in Rosso, twenty others will follow in Selibaby, another locality in the interior of the country.

As for the representative of AfricTivistes, Seydina Bilal Diallo, he said that this initiative demonstrates, despite all the prejudices about African youth, that the spirit is still alive in Mauritania where young people are more than ever committed to change and impact their community. “These sessions will certainly help in building a strong citizen’s conscience and sow the seeds of future change. They will foster a new dynamic in all localities to promote and defend democratic values, human rights and good governance,” he explained in his speech. He also expressed the hope that concrete and appropriate solutions will be found to address the major problems of these localities and on a larger scale to meet the challenges of democratic progress in Mauritania, which can only be achieved through a strong citizen’s conscience. According to Seydina Bilal Diallo, these young beneficiaries of the training will leave these sessions with the capacity to promote and strengthen the civic commitment of citizens. “On behalf of AfricTivistes and its President, whom I came to represent, I thank you and congratulate you again for these sessions for the youth of Rosso. We encourage you to continue in this momentum and to keep going. You deserve to be supported in this momentum,” he concluded.

It should be noted that at the end of the successful training on Monday 12 September 2022, certificates were given to all beneficiaries who followed the training programme with interest.