On the topic of Governance and Rule of Law, our aim is to foster awareness and empowerment through knowledge and action. With two of our projects, “Our Voices Matter: Strengthening Young Women Leaders in the University System” and “Youth as Change Agents: Fighting Corruption and Sexual Bribery,” we aimed to equip youth leaders with the knowledge and skills required to drive change.

“Our Voices Matter” focused on raising awareness on democratic concepts, principles, and norms among female and male university students.The project encouraged them to assume leadership roles within university unions and communities, and provided them with a platform to voice their concerns to lawmakers and policy makers. CEJ conducted ten online sessions with university students on the subject of “Democratic Governance and Rule of Law”, concluding with discussions with community women from various districts, such as, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Kilinochchi, Jaffna, and the Central Province, who have been affected by war, poverty, gender-based violence, and other forms of violence. This led to the creation of a lobby document, news articles and a social media campaign by the participating university students.

“Youth as Change Agents” focused on equipping youth with the skills and knowledge to advocate for the eradication of corruption, with an emphasis on eliminating sexual bribery within the public sector. This initiative ensured and provided university students and youth groups to have the awareness and leadership qualities needed to promote transparency and accountability. The activities involved capacity-building sessions on principles such as the Open Government Partnership (OGP), sexual bribery and corruption, governance and democracy, issues relevant to war-affected women, legal and policy frameworks to address these issues, and a global perspective on best practices in youth and open government initiatives. Moreover, we provided a platform for selected students to engage with diverse stakeholders through small-scale advocacy initiatives and social media campaigns.The project also conducted an islandwide online rapid poll among youth, to elicit and assess their opinion on corruption, bribery and sexual bribery in the public sector.