Agents of Innovation & Possitive Social Change!

"The world's young population, now numbering more than 1 billion, are a major human resource for development, and can be key agents of innovation and possitive social change. Yet the scale of youth poverty robs the world of such potential...." [Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, message on international youth day 12th August 2006].

That's a tough line. As long as our youth remain unemployed, so called SPR's, our nation, islands, communities and families get robed of an otherwise blessing.

Our youth must be made aware of the immense potential they have. They must be encouraged, listened to, provided an educational opportunity, and encouraged some more. Adults are good at discouraging young people. They call them stupid, good-for-nothing, hed-blong-nawita (octobus head), etc. More like self-fulfilling prophecies, our young people turn out to be so - pushed out of the school system, get strong-headed and rebellious, careless about their bodies and start on the road to subtance abuse, etc. Then we stand back and ask "why?".

Kofi Annan added "Our challenge is clear: we must pay more attention to education, in particular to the transition from education to employment". That takes everybody's effort: parents, educators, youth workers, community leaders and the church. I gues Annan is saying, if we want to solve the national problem we must solve the youth problem. It's high time we start reprioritising our agendas and redirecting our efforts: Youth!

Annan continued, "..the ability of youth to find full and productive employment must be a central objective of national development strategies..". In other words, all our efforts - CRP, Master plan, Priority action plans, etc, must go to enabling youth to find full and productive employment. An activity that does not have this as an end must be cut out. Amen and amen.