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Youth Volunteerism for Development
Youth Volunteerism for Development
IN THE SHADOW OF OUR LEADERS
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In a climate of fear, insecurity, mass movement has become a norm which seeks to direct and engage debates about the excesses and deprivation of our lives. Young people have not been left out of these mass gathering of citizens campaigns and initiatives. In fact we have been at the growing center of more creative and innovative ones. Our enthusiasm, youthful exuberance and passion to indentify injustices and seek redemption have spurred us on. Over the past decades themes such as youth empowerment, youth led development, youth employment summit, world youth congress series, commission on sustainable development, youth caucus series and policy statements such as the UN World Programme of Action for youth, Commonwealth Plan of Action for Youth, The International Youth Leadership training programmes and the mother of all the UN Millennium Development Goals. These are noble initiatives and policy statements meant to engage young people like Ghandi said `be the change you want to see``.
As a beneficiary of many of such initiatives I cannot underestimate the huge role such noble causes and initiatives are playing in empowering the over half of the world’s population (young people). I would not over burden you with statistics as you have seen many and read about lots of them. The purpose of this article or essay which ever way you might call it, is to shed light on the growing number of young people that are been left behind because of lack of imaginative and creative leadership on the part of youth leaders and challenges of technologies in the so called third world.

More than half of Africa’s population is under the age of eighteen, yet many of our elders, teachers, and governments try to persuade us we are victims of slavery. We cannot deny the inhumane treatment our ancestors got from past generations of western citizens but is not an excuse that generations later we are still been made to look back. They went further to lay blame on the Breton Hood institutions and conspiracies for our backwardness, poor infrastructural development, diseases, conflicts; they only fell short of blaming the Greek gods. When in effect we are victims of our leader’s greed, corruption, nepotism, hypocrisy, and short sightedness, one can only speak about the burden we are carrying as citizens of Africa. The mad rush of our politicians toward self enrichment has become all too obvious. A ruling caste had arisen in our countries which based its power on the sowing of hatred, on pitting brother against brother, on liquidating everyone who held a view different from theirs. On the old continent a change of generations or players does not always bring relief.
If only because old habits expectation and role models die hard. Today sad as it may seems the current generation is steadily following the footsteps of our leaders.

As the wave if youth led development, empowerment initiatives sweep across the continent I cannot help but marvel at the number of young people been left behind underpowered. Due to technological advancement many young people who after attending one or two workshops through the internet have assumed the roles of youth consultants and developments experts on the continent. Opportunities though vast are limited to urban or city youths who have no idea the disheartening effects of poverty and even if they do are at the privileges of hours sitting behind internet cafes filling forms for the next international conference. From Bawku to Accra there are hundreds of youth groups claiming to be campaigning on social and developmental issues, their actions are anything but seeking opportunities to line in their pockets hundreds and thousands of $. They seek quick fortunes and build organisations credible enough on the internet. Many of the workshops and conferences aimed at empowering young people on the continent for immediate and future challenges are attended by youth who are qualified to be there by virtue of their youthfulness, yet do not belong to a community or group to impart the knowledge they have gained. Many of them are pompous and are ignorant of the plight of the ordinary youth living in the rural and poor urban settings who by no faults of theirs do not have the privilege of the internet or the resources. Like our leaders we scramble for every available position and carry needless titles. Ironically after attending conferences for which we have neither contributed anything meaningful, yet proud to openly advertise and add the latest of our country of conquest. Once I sat through a presentation at an international conference from two youth leaders from Ghana and Sierra Leone, I bowed my head in shame as they struggle to get the words out and convince the audience that they do what they were talking about, as sweat form all over their faces, though one of them claim to be a consultant on youth affairs, when he had never travel outside the confines of his modest family home in Accra, the capital of Ghana prior to that conference.

For six to seven years as I traveled through the length and breadth of Ghana working with many youth leaders, who go through enormous challenges and obstacles trying to make genuine difference and imparting knowledge to less resourced youths, I have nothing but deep respect for the creativeness and tenacity of some of the youth leaders we have in Ghana and Africa. In the same vain ashamed at some of the sheer greed, corruption, opportunists, and tribalism some of them propagate discreetly through their narrow mindedness. In the shadow of some of our leaders we are promoting injustice to our fellow youths and countrymen which has dogged the continent. Through ignorance we are creating elitism among our generation and building walls against proper integration of our diverse ethnic groups and opinions.

The thousands of campaigns that have been launched to achieve the UN Millennium goals have been confined on the internet and a few sporadic workshops in major cities. It is no wonder that 80% percent of the youth population in Obuasi, Upper Denkyira and greater part of rural and semi-urban towns in Ghana have not even come across the millennium development goals. Least its significance. What is the use of this campaigns and empowerment when only the elite of youth understand them?

Among a section of the youth success is measured on how many countries you have been able to gain entry visas .It has become a bench mark on which hundreds of youth set their target on. Only a few legitimately want the opposite.

Like the peacebuilders and government officials in the Northern Ghana who have tried to force connection with the local people by establishing their own contact groups, consisting of journalist, business people, human rights activists, civil society and other community leaders to the negotiating table. But they are no substitute for the uninformed public and vast majority of illiterates who really matter for the sustainability of peace in the three Northern Regions.

To meet donor requirement for this internet based youth organisation and the opportunity to embezzle funds these youth organisations hold large workshops that are often prepared hurriedly and are not particularly incisive. Participants rarely know the issues to be discussed ahead of time and seldom feel afterwards that they have been empowered except for the benefit of the per-diem.

However there are few youth organisations, groups who are quiet heroes and heroines trying to make a difference in the face of daunting odds. It’s unfortunate that the higher the African officials go in the hierarchy, the greater our sense of entitlement. As Robert Calderisi remarked in his book `the trouble with Africa` African leader’s water their roots but their sensitivity, imagination and ambition do not stray very far from their home.
They go at every lengthen to strengthen their ethnic and cultural ties whiles in power and position of affluence. The same trend is setting in the youth leaders where you will visit an office and be struck with the lack of diversity and opinion. The leader surrounds him/herself with his tribal men and women. His initiative barely goes beyond his hometown.

For changes to emerge on a continent deeply wounded by poverty and conflicts, we need to question the moral justification of continuing a path that has divided us for generations.

By Rashid Zuberu


April 6, 2009 | 5:25 PM Comments  0 comments

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