YETT Ballot Buddies

The Embassy entered into an 18 months agreement with YETT for a total of SEK3,2 million for the Ballot Buddies project. The project had four result areas which will be looked at below.   Improved capacity of network members in conducting voter education creatively that leads to a reduction in youth voter apathy. YETT, through a call for proposals selected 11 youth organisations across the country. The organisations went through capacity building that enabled them to devise strategies to use during the life of the project.  The  trainings strengthened the members and organisations ability and skills to manage processes,  enabled organisations to facilitate trainings in their communities. The network members demonstrated competencies in creative strategies to voter education, which resulted in 85% of YETT partners expressing an increased competence in the development of creative strategies for encouraging young people to go and register to vote. Partners were able to use youth friendly initiatives, platform and messaging which were appreciated and understood by the youth population. This included videos uploaded on twitter, instagram and you tube, as well as bulk sms, radio jingles, ballot buddies Real life challenges on different radio stations and hash tag youth engage campaign. Increased number of youth who make positive electoral decisions based on multiple sources of information This objective was also a success in that through different platforms such as twitter, face book, instagram, tv and radio the project activities reached out to a total number of 4 000 000 people. The net effect was that over 3 500 000 people who received information on the entire electoral process managed to go and register to vote and actually voted. The project greatly enhanced youth willingness and capacity of young people to act individually and collectively in exercising their democratic right to register to vote. In an evaluation conducted by YETT 60% of young people stated that they  increased their knowledge on voter registration requirements through the programme. An increase in the number of Youth registered and voting in the 2018 elections. A total of 2 376 000 youths registered to vote, through information received through the project interventions. According to ZEC statistics, 5,6 million people registered to vote during the BVR process. Out of this figure 43,5% were young people aged between 18 and 35 years. This can be attributed to some of the interventions of the programme. Feedback from YETT and partner organisations mobilisation efforts showed that at least 70% of those reached with information were motivated to register to vote. The official statistics on youth voter turn out are not yet released by ZEC.  However, YETT and its partner organisations estimate that about 60% was the actual voter turn out of young people on the polling day. An increased number of interventions where youth contribute towards peaceful resolution of conflict.YETT partnered with Heal Zimbabwe, ZPP in monitoring and reporting violence to the police and ZEC (under the ZEC – CSO forum) during the project implementation period. Through project interventions young people were engaged as agents of change in their communities through promoting peace which contributed to reduced cases of politically motivated violence in the country. A total of 2 020 peace makers and ambassadors received conflict management and transformation skills under this project. The #Im4Peace Campaign generated and maintained interest by encouraging young people who had voted to continue engaging in peace in order to foster a culture of active citizenry. This has enabled youth to engage in national processes peacefully post 2018 elections. 

The overall objective of the project is to enhance active, positive and peaceful participation of all youth, male and female, aged between 17 and 35 years in the 2018 electoral process. In order to reach the overall objective, the following immediate objectives must be fulfilled: 1) YETT network members increase their competence to use new and creative strategies to educate youths to register to vote. 2) Youth are adequately informed of the entire electoral cycle based on access to information thus enabling them to realise and uphold their civic rights and responsibilities. 3) Youth aged between 17 and 35 years are able to register to vote and feel motivated to vote during the 2018 elections. 4) Youth are transformed into peacemakers and ambassadors in their communities for the promotion of a conflict free environment pre and post the electoral process.