Young Women in Action

Young Women in Action (YWA) is a not-for-profit, membership-based Non-Governmental Organization established in 2002 to provide an enabling environment in which young women in Zambia can contribute towards their own empowerment and national development. The need to empower women came out of the realization that young women faced a lot of challenges in being accorded equal opportunities to fully participate in decision making at family, community, organizational, and national levels. The intention was also to counter the practice of tailor making programmes for older people (the over 35) while leaving out the younger people. Even well-meaning programmes targeting women generally, have suffered from a form of age discrimination with priority being given to older women in the women’s movement. This led to an intergenerational gap which often manifested itself in problems of continuity in organizations when older women leave their positions. The reasons given for nonparticipation were that, young women did not have the desired leadership skills, adequate knowledge and experience to take up higher positions and for them to articulate issues properly. It is for this reason that YWA was established to intervene so that such issues can be addressed in a strategical manner