A youth development council for the Huhu Local Level Government (LLG) in Milne Bay Province will be established next year.
The Council will be set up under the youth program for the provincial community development division.
Provincial youth coordinator Vicky Wesley says the ultimate aim is to establish a mother body for Huhu LLG, which consists of 29 wards, including Ahioma and Nigila.
Under this program, they have been organising youths to surrender homemade guns and homebrew equipment.
The youths of Ahioma and Nigila took the first step to surrender their items last week to police.
Wesley said this step they have taken has created a pathway for community development, especially the youth sector, to now begin to roll out their program of establishing the Council.
“We anticipate having this established by early 2017 where we will have to bring in officers from our National Youth Development Authority Office to facilitate the actual training,” states Wesley.
“The training to establish the Council will run for a week and we are hoping to stage it at Ahioma.”
Huhu LLG youth leader, male advocator and coordinator at NGO Kedu Seif Haus, John Abraham, says there are empowerment programs for the youths that they’ll also introduce.
After the surrender of items, they have now opened up a pathway for empowerment and rehabilitation programs to take place by the community development division, he adds.