President Paul Kagame has urged youth representatives across the country to aim higher and use their young age to prepare for their bright future and that of the entire country.

The Head of State made the call, yesterday, while meeting about 2,000 youth leaders from across the country that represent their peers from the sector up to the national level under the National Youth Council (NYC).

The event at Petit Stade in Remera, Kigali marked the end of a two-week civic education programme, Itorero, for the youth leaders.

The youth were trained under the name of Inkomezamihigo, a Kinyarwanda word that means those who continue working to achieve the already set targets.

The group’s name sums up their assigned mission to play their part in upholding what the country has already achieved and yesterday’s meeting with the President helped the Head of State to once again highlight what the country expects from the young people.

"Being young is not enough. You must invest in yourselves. Invest in passion, energy, strength, and knowledge that you will use to face challenges in your own lives and challenges faced by your country at large,” Kagame said, urging the young people not to waste their youthful time but put it to good use to prepare their future.

"We want to see you strive to learn, to contribute, to play your part in this country because it belongs to you,” Kagame added.

He encouraged them to "think big”, reminding them that had it not been for thinking big on the part of the Rwandan leaders, the country wouldn’t have successfully recovered from the terrible aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

"They called us a small failed state. But we refused to fail. We refused to be small. We are not small. A good idea cannot be small. Good ideology cannot be small. People, a nation cannot be small,” he said.

The President urged the youth to commit to working hard to achieve their ambitious targets, instead of opting for being "failures”, which he said requires no efforts at all.

"Choosing not to be small has a price. You will have to spend sleepless nights; work hard and nobody will thank you for that. I am asking you to make one clear choice. The one that costs us a lot. Being big is where we belong,” he told the cheerful youth.

Kagame also had an interactive session with the youth leaders, advising them on how some of their concerns, like high interest rates for loans, can be resolved while they also shared what they learned from the two-week civil education training.

The coordinator of the Executive Committee of the National Youth Council, Clarisse Uwanyirigira, said that the Itorero programme helped them to understand their responsibilities as youth leaders and the leadership values that will guide them.

"We understand that what Rwanda has achieved is a result of sacrifices by many leaders of our country. We have resolved to love our country and make others love it,” she said.

She also said that the youth leaders have pledged to use the opportunities available in the country to the maximum and achieve as much as possible working together in cooperatives.

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