Promoting youth participation in politics

'Youths are the leaders of tommorrow' echos the ever sung out cliche but the most sound advise to be said. It is therefore pertinent for youth to be active and take charge and with the advent of ICT's it has given youths the power to be take charge.The most invigorating youth discussion I've attended would be the one facilitated by Grace Chung and Michael Caldwell, two American students at a Food for Thought session at the U.S Embassy auditorium. Caldwell and Grace gave valid points highlighting that promoting youth participation through social media is the best way to reach out to youths in a world where the new media has become the nucleus of every youths social life. Although this may not seem possible in Africa, research has shown that Africa has twice as many mobile phones as in America. Thus political participation should not apply to America only but to Africa as well. Although the process is an ongoing issue, digital divide is still one of the problems  affecting the information age in Africa . They highlighted that youths are the larger percentage in the population and this plays a part in the political landscape when it comes to voting particularly. Ideological differences also play a part in politics, lately governments have not been striving well under the support of the older generation, ever wondered why? I presume the answer is no, this is because as Grace and Caldwell noted, the older generation is usually angry with the government and are also not comfortable with change and where is development without change!  Youths in Zimbabwe resort to violence and have been usually used as puppets of political parties. Why not use the older generation as the puppets and lets take charge.