Opinion piece by Faida Mwangilwa, Chair of the Ipas DRC Board of Directors, adapted from remarks delivered on the occasion of the inauguration of the Kasa-Vubu Youth-Friendly Center. 

The Kasa-Vubu Youth-Friendly Center reflects a clear ambition: to ensure that adolescents and young people can access information about their health and rights, while having a space where they can speak up, exercise leadership and take action for their peers and communities. On the occasion of its inauguration, the Chair of the Board of Ipas DRC shares her vision for what this center can become: a space truly shaped by and for young people.  

It is with immense joy and great pride that I write on the occasion of the inauguration of the Kasa-Vubu Youth-Friendly Center. 

I would first like to express our deep gratitude to the Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Welfare, through the National Adolescent Health Program (PNSA), for its partnership and commitment to the health and well-being of adolescents and young people. 

Our thanks also go to the Mayor of Kasa-Vubu municipality for his valuable support in making this initiative a reality. 

Above all, I want to thank young people themselves. This center belongs to you. 

Your involvement in its establishment demonstrates your determination not to remain spectators to the challenges that affect your lives, but to become agents of change. 

A generation that is informed and empowered to act 

Ipas DRC’s ambition is simple but powerful: to contribute to a generation of young people who are healthy, informed, responsible and empowered to act. 

A generation that is better protected from sexually transmitted infections and HIV, as well as unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortion. A generation with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about their health and their future. 

But our vision goes further. 

We want young people who do not stand by in the face of challenges, but take their future into their own hands. Young people who understand the root causes of the sexual and reproductive health challenges they face, including lack of information, limited knowledge of available services and referral mechanisms. 

This is precisely the ambition this center is intended to serve.  

A hub for youth leadership 

We want this center to truly become a hub for young people committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, comprehensive sexuality education, addressing sexual and gender-based violence, preventing and responding to adolescent pregnancy, ending child marriage, and preventing young people from dropping out of school for avoidable reasons related to sexual and reproductive health. 

Through these objectives, the center also contributes to a broader ambition: achieving the Sustainable Development Goals : promoting the health and well-being of adolescents and young people contributes to SDG 3 on good health and well-being. Helping girls remain in school contributes to SDG 4 on quality education. Preventing gender-based violence and child marriage, while strengthening girls’ agency, advances SDG 5 on gender equality. Ensuring that the most vulnerable young people can access information and services also contributes to reducing inequalities, in line with SDG 10.  

Our work also reflects the spirit of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, including United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. 

We want girls and young women to be seen not only as people who need protection from violence, but as individuals who have the knowledge, spaces and opportunities they need to participate, speak up, exercise leadership and become agents of change within their communities. 

This center must therefore be a place where young people come to gain knowledge, but, above all, a place from which their ideas, initiatives and actions for their peers can emerge.  

Amplifying young people’s voices 

It is in this same spirit that we have integrated a podcast studio into the center. 

At a time when digital platforms and social media play an increasingly important role in young people’s lives, we must also know how to use these tools to inform, raise awareness and mobilize. 

Young champions will now be able to develop and record their own awareness-raising messages here, share them through digital platforms and social media, and reach other young people without production costs becoming a barrier to their engagement.  

Thriving Beyond the Opening  

Our greatest satisfaction will therefore not simply be having inaugurated a beautiful center. It will be seeing it thrive tomorrow. 

We will also be proud to see the Ministry of Health take ownership of, use and sustain this center, in close collaboration with Ipas DRC, so that it can continue to serve young people today and generations to come. 

I would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, NORAD, whose support helped make this initiative possible. 

We would have been honored to welcome the Norwegian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Unfortunately, a last-minute commitment prevented him from joining us. We hope he will soon have the opportunity to visit the center and see what the generosity of the Norwegian people has helped make possible, through Ipas DRC, to advance young people’s access to information, engagement and empowerment.  

This center belongs to you 

Dear young people, 

This center belongs to you. Bring it to life. Make it your hub. 

Let it become a space where you find information, but also where you develop solutions. 

A space where you find your voice and learn how to make it heard. 

A space from which you take action, not only for yourselves, but for your peers and your communities.