“Failing to
invest in our youth is a false economy,” said the United Nations (UN) Secretary
General Ban Ki-Moon.
Three months ago, International Youth Day (IYD) was commenced to round up the UN International Year of Youth (IYY) 2010-2011. “Change Our World” was chosen as the theme of the year, which draw youth’s inspiration to take initiatives to change and bring positive impacts to the globe.
The theme
represents the importance of the impact that the young generation to strive to
achieve. It also stresses the notion of global citizenship and cosmopolitanism
as the core principles of the UN.
The UN significantly
raises youth inclusion to the global policy agenda. However, the reality shows
that it is uneasy to truly empower youth. Policy and politics regard youth
voice as risk. Favouring those in power is the major roadblock for genuine youth
empowerment. There are critics about youth being apathetic to politics. But if they
are not given channels to voice out their thoughts, how can they be motivated
to participate in politics?
Nowadays, we
talk a lot about sustainable development- to meet the current need without
compromising the need of the next generation. Sustainability does not solely
refer to environmental sense, but also all walks of social aspect. To sustain
the well being of the global community, youth should be given freedom to speak
and opportunities they deserved.
The question is
“how can we encourage young people to speak?” In the information age, youth,
the e-generation, are proficient users of all kinds of modern communications
(i.e. social media and online discussion platforms). These tools have great
capacity to connect youth to the outside world. We need to give young people a room to speak and shout out loud, and to be heard from people around the globe.
Seeing the boom
of the e-climate, we created the online educational platform- Rafi.ki, to
encourage young people to exchange ideas, inspirations and plan to make changes
upon the emerging global issues. With our effort, we motivate youth to be
actively engaged. With the support from governments, NGOs, and corporate, we
believe it will be a big step forward to effectively empower global youth.
Show your support by following us on twitter, joining our Facebook page and telling your friends, colleagues and family.
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