Eritrean Diaspora Youth are continuously coming to Eritrea for different purposes. Two of the main reasons they come to Eritrea are for vacation or coming to volunteer. In either of these cases there is one hardship the diaspora youth might face when coming back to their nation, which is that they do not know the country or are not as adjusted to it and its society as well as a native Eritrean. This predicament leaves a lot of youth feeling very lonely or even bored. It also deprives them of gaining the full experience of visiting their motherland.
In order to remove this burden off the shoulders of the youth that come back home, diaspora youth affiliated with NUEYS have created a group for the Eritrean youth coming from abroad called “Eritrean Youth of the Fourth Front”. The name describes the youth living in the diaspora, also referred to as the Fourth Front, which is one of the forefronts in the fight for Eritrea’s development.
This is a group that fully consists of young Eritreans (ages 18-40) from the Diaspora that are in Eritrea. The reasoning behind the creation of EYFF is to create a space where youth from the diaspora can come to Eritrea and interact with their counterparts that come from a similar environment as them. This helps enhance their experience of the motherland, as they journey through the nation with similar points of views creating an environment of mutual enjoyment in all the moments they share.
The “Eritrean Youth of the Fourth Front” had their first official meeting on January 26th, 2023. The Individuals who attended were nationals from counties, such as the US, Germany, Sweden, UK, and Canada. Since this was the group’s first meeting the majority of the meet was spent getting to know each other.
After the group had gotten to know each other, the new members began the meeting by describing the objectives of the group and what they believed that the future of this group could hold. In their discussions they expressed how the main identity of the group is family and that as EYFF grows, family must be the core characteristic that grows hand in hand with the evolution of the group. The members of the EYFF concluded that if this group can steadily develop it has the potential to bring the diaspora youth together in order to make a bigger and more organized impact in Eritrea.
The group decided to plan different events in the spirit of creating an environment that is both entertaining and enlightening, in the aim of strengthening the bond of the group. As the very first event of the EYFF, the members of the group decided to visit the orphanage in Asmara. More on the outcome of this event will be coming in our next article.
