This Seat at the Table by Hawa Kimbugwe

The Coalition’s live stream event for International Youth Day called “No more youth tokenism!” held last Friday, August 13, featured dynamic conversations and artistic intervention from renowned artists from Uganda through Youth Arts Movement Uganda and Soul City Arts.

The interventions included live art from our resident artist - Mohammed Ali MBE, a song and music video called Claiming It! - the official anthem of the Coalition, and a poem called This Seat at the Table by Hawa Kimbugwe.

You can read the whole piece here:

this seat at the table

When you say Youth deserve a seat at the table,
Do you want the seat filled or the seat used? Ahhh
Thanks to you all, who treasure, respect, and provide us with space,
Safe enough to speak and share our youthfulness,

And crazy creative juices!
Haha, when I was a child, crossing the roads wasn’t easy!
Until now as an adult, crossing roads is dead busy!!
I look right, left, and right again till I get dizzy.
Narrowly, I made it through today.
Look, you were right here in the same shoes yesterday!

I am not too young to know
Engage and work with me more,
You would love it, how it feels inside!
To know what I know, as you also pass the torch, to light the path! Sometimes I may sound crazy. - YES!!
Cause maybe I’ve been rejected - laid back for so long!

These baby steps you urge me to persistently take seem delusional That we are the leaders of tomorrow. Tomorrow!!? Tomorrow… We shall be youth no more! (Say it with me!)

We are leaders of now, today!
From our mistakes and your mentorship, we can do better!
The youth age is the peak for every human.
And we want to help!
So, when our car-less selves walk side by side on these streets
We don’t want to be merely street siders -
Will you work with us to make these streets safer, livable again?
To walk fearless, on these pavements.
With streetlights in night protect us from sexual harassment during the dark! Safe Roads connect us to our dreams,
But how can we realize our dreams,
When are our roads filled with death trap cars!?
Together, we can make climate work in our favour again.

The youth in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, won’t stop claiming it. The future, a more connect, livable and sustainable world. Where youth deaths by road crashes stop topping the statistics. Then and only then shall we know that seat at the table was used and not merely filled. Cause that space was ours in the first place, if you traced your steps! Will you now, more than ever, work with us!?