Nice Trust engages schools on voter registration civic education
National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) Trust has started civic educating secondary school students in Ntchisi district on the need to register in the yet-to-start voter registration exercise if are to cast their votes next year.
Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) is expected to start voter registration next month in readiness for 2019 Tripartite Elections.
President Peter Mutharika and his vice, Saulos Chilima have on separate occasions appealed to young people in the country to register in the voters’ roll for them to participate in the next year’s elections.
And NICE has taken up the initiative to civic educate students in Ntchisi on the importance of voting.
Ntchisi District Civic Education Officer (DCEO), Bester Chikafutwa said most of the secondary school students in the district are eligible to vote, hence the need to sensitize them about voter registration exercise.
“We realized that civic-educating these students will help to reach other people since they will take the given information to their respective homes. By civic educating them, we are also helping them to under their right to register and vote,” said Chikafutwa.
One of the students at Gwangwa Community Day Secondary School, Hezekiah Mbeta said the information is vital and has helped him to know what it takes for one to vote.
“The same information I have acquired today I will take it home, I will even spread the word at my church as well as to my friends back home,” explained Mbeta.
Ntchisi District Elections Officer, Sammy Ng’anjo commended NICE for the initiative.
“We encourage all Malawians to go and register in large numbers because you cannot take part in all electoral activities without being registered. This year’s registration we will use national identity cards and if a person has not yet registered they should do so now at the District Commissioners office,” said Ng’anjo.
He further said that at MEC voter registration centres there will also be National Registration Bureau (NRB) officials who will be registering those who did not have Nzika IDs.
Voter registration has been divided into eight phases and Ntchisi district is in phase two which starts on 13 July to 26 July 2018.
The civic education exercise which started on Monday 11 June 2018 is targeting all schools in the district.
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