Youths should be engaged in all sectors
Roundtable told
Participants at a roundtable, "Be the Change You Want to See: Conversing with Youth of Bangladesh", co-hosted by The Daily Star, United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at The Daily Star Centre in the capital yesterday.Photo: STAR
The youth should be increasingly engaged in all sectors, including policy making, for the country's further development and for fighting the challenges ahead, speakers said at a roundtable yesterday. They also emphasised promoting youth volunteerism to address major national challenges like unemployment, disaster management, violence against women, social stigma, and political instability. UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Neal Walker said youths should take the leadership in social, political and economic development activities. "If you choose to be a leader, you can be a leader," he told the young folks. He noted that Bangladesh had achieved successes in disaster management and in cutting child and maternal mortality for significant contribution from volunteering youths. "Youth volunteerism is a critical component of development paradigm," he told the roundtable, "Be the Change You Want to See: Conversing with Youth of Bangladesh", at The Daily Star Centre in the capital. The English newspaper co-hosted the programme with United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Aasha Mehreen Amin, magazine editor of The Star, a weekly publication of The Daily Star, said the young generation should have the sprit and an absolute determination to push the society towards a positive change. Plan Bangladesh communications official Tony Michael Gomes laid importance on life skills training like swimming, trekking and community level networking to enhance the skills of young volunteers. He advised young women to fight their inbuilt prejudices to eliminate gender discrimination. Debashis Roy, head of CSR of Grameenphone Ltd, viewed that national commitment and incentive for the youth volunteers would create a platform for them to perform better. The youth volunteers should work for ensuring access of rural people to health care information, said Dr Nowmi Mirza, volunteer and medical consultant at Maya. Taskin Ur Rahman, deputy manger (campaign and communication, health and nutrition) of Save the Children, advised the youth to get involved in communication and infrastructure development to provide health care in rural areas. MK Aaref, director of EMK Center, focused on arranging orientation courses for the youth volunteers so that they could work better in social development. A youth volunteer from Change the Lives, Touhidul Islam Tusher, emphasised the youth's role in preventing street children from being drug addicts. Razee Mohammad Fakhrul, chairman of Debidar upazila of Comilla, laid stress on capacity building of rural youths so that they could contribute to social changes.
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