The Inspector General of Police, Emmanuel K. Gasana, has challenged youth volunteers to be agents of change while addressing issues of crime to enhance national security. This was during his lecture to the 300 youth volunteers at the National Police College (NPC) in Musanze District, on Saturday. The youth are undergoing 10-day crime prevention training course. The group has about 7, 000 members countrywide and engage in social schemes that support vulnerable communities and carry out crime prevention awareness programmes in schools and communities against drug abuse, corruption and gender and domestic violence, among others. In his lecture, the Police Chief highlighted strategic key issues that affect national security such as enemy propaganda that manifests through negative ideology and some media platforms. He pointed out the issues of crime trends, technological development, human insecurities, geopolitics and corruption as some of the emerging security threats. Gasana also urged the youth on assets of strategic value, the rule of law and advised them to always work as a team for ‘together each achieves more.” The volunteers were reminded that a vision without execution is hallucination...and that this causes a wasted generation. The volunteers underwent training in various other civic education lectures that were delivered by several high government and academic personalities that included topics on Rwandan values, culture, self reliance, patriotism and the role of public in crime prevention campaigns. IGP Gasana cited cyber crimes, human trafficking and money laundering among the emerging crimes that he said need more organised techniques to prevent. “We need to have a collective responsibility of crime prevention and the best way to go is to use community policing approach,” he noted. The course participants vowed to be serious crime preventers in their communities and institutions of higher learning as they are all university students. The youth volunteer training is expected to close tomorrow.
