Youth Empowerment - It all sounds familiar

Feature: Youth Empowerment - It all sounds familiar

“Now that triumph must be won once more, and it must be won by you. I am particularly speaking to the young people all across Africa and right here in Ghana”.

“The world will be what you make of it. You have the power to hold your leaders accountable and to build institutions that serve the people. You can serve in your communities and harness your energy and education to create new wealth and build new connections to the world. You can conquer diseases, and end conflicts and make change from the bottom up. You can do that. Yes you can - because in this moment, history is on the move.”

The above inspirational yet challenging words of President Barack Obama speaking directly to the young ones across Africa and particularly to the Ghanaian youth sounds too familiar. It is the kind of thing churches have spoken about. Parents pray about it, politicians have coloured it many times with uproars of 'yeah, yeah', the Police add their voices when the opportunity arises, managements are always highlighting it in the board room and teachers underline it with red ink. The kind of youth empowerment which builds responsible and motivated youth are much talked about topics these days.

Some people belonging to the old school of thought do argue that when the youth are given too much power at the top, they get intoxicated with it and in the exuberance take a lot of uncalculated risks which can be costly. Sometimes, innocent people have been bastardized and defamed due to someone's error. Take for example the pain some of our young presenters and hosts of some media programmes have caused some individuals with unfounded allegations. Taking that these are small exceptions, the bigger picture is how do we help our young ones to influence change from the bottom and remain responsible?

As an employee of a global multinational company, one thing that I always found intriguing was that whenever the global bosses come down to visit the local company, they specifically requested to have a time on their short busy schedule to speak to or interact with the young managers. I soon came to understand that running a forward looking company; they saw the future of their business in the hands of the vibrant youth who were going to be the future decision makers of the business and future leaders, taking decisions for their communities and families.

In the organization itself, there was always a deliberate focus on the youth. The young ones who exhibited some promise for the future are put on some special list, cultivated, watered and nurtured for a bigger position in the future. From the day they are identified and put on that 'privileged list' of promising managers, they are mentored, coached, given the appropriate training and motivation to do their jobs. That is their way of developing their young managers to take up responsible positions in future when the older ones are left. Effective succession planning you may call it.

Of course our young ones are our world and ignoring any investment in their future means doom. There are some serious minded youth today who have grasped fully the future and are running with it. Some young entrepreneurs and managers in our country today have made it big in their areas of engagement and are contributing to the development of their communities and the country in general. Success for them is measured by their degree of contribution to better results and a better world.

I get inspired to see young men and women take up challenges with the determination to turn things around and make the best out of it. For them, whether from a rich home or a poor home, whether they have someone to hold their hands or not, they feel the urge to lift themselves up and reach for success irrespective of where it may be hiding. Such young adults need to be mentored to do even much better.

I am a great believer in the mentoring system which aims to build successful individuals. I see it as one great tool in coaching and counseling. This I believe is something that our grandparents did very well, especially in royal lineages where the young ones are sent to live with an older relative in their early life to be mentored and groomed for the future. Today, we find very little of such mentoring in our families, communities, churches, work places, schools and the like. Many successful young men and women who have found their way to the top have, most of the time, had the benefit of an older coach and mentor guiding him or her through the dos and don'ts of a successful life.

As we get reminded of the things that our young ones can do to influence change from the bottom up and the kind of things they can direct their energies at in order to create new wealth and build new connections to their world, let us also be mindful of the fact that we can, as adults, help the youth to help themselves. Assuming every institution, from the private sector right through to the public sector was to adopt mentoring, coaching and counseling as a must have on their human resource development plan, that will be one great investment in the building of responsible and motivated human resource capital for this country. There is some good that every adult at some stage in their lives have passed through and which can be useful lessons for any young man or woman entering a career world or starting a family.

Unfortunately, on the flip side, there are other young ones who are obsessed with making instant money just the same way as making instant coffee. They have no patience to wait for systems and processes. These people start work today and they expect that tomorrow should bring them the latest car and mobile phone. That is the craze that has gradually brought all manner of crime, deceit and lies into our society today. Why would a young man or woman put their lives and future in jeopardy by indulging in narcotic drugs or go into prostitution for example? Why would a young man engage in internet crime or armed robbery when he knows that the consequences can be dangerous?

On the national front, we certainly can do a lot more to unlock and encourage the potentials in our young people. If our systems and processes change and we begin to make some of those crimes and misdemeanour unattractive through severe punishment, energies would be channeled to more decent things.

Our educational system continues to be a disincentive. Too academic, it does not bring out the entrepreneurial spirit in people. It does not liberate the mind enough so a young person comes out of school or university to join a queue waiting for a formal employment that will put thousands of Ghana Cedis in his or her pocket sometimes expecting a car to go with it as well. Employers are spending huge budgets to re-train graduates to better fit them for the job market. Those who become non-trainable fall by the way side and become liabilities on the system whereas if they had the entrepreneurial skills, they would have been the ones generating employment for others. As for the knowledge and skills our youth are acquiring from some of the private tertiary institutions that are mushrooming all over the place, the less said about them the better. Some of them are just mere money making ventures.

At the job market, people are hanging on till they reach the compulsory retiring age. Sometimes, they will even reduce their ages so that they can stay on till all the energy in them gets sapped because they have not prepared for retirement. What chance does the young man or woman waiting in line have? How can we talk about youth empowerment when the older ones at the top will not give them the opportunity to move in and for those already in to move up?

It is worrying that we do not have a believable and workable policy direction for the development of the youth, the future of this country. It is even more disturbing to see future potentials out there on the streets increasing by the day. They have a good sense of market opportunities too. Wherever traffic builds up, you are sure to find them there. Where are the ethics of those adults or companies who are sending these children on the streets to sell their products and do they value their safety?

Irresponsible parenthood is also a contributing factor. If parents took a little interest in their children's future, if they gave them a better education, if they guided them in life, the burden of delinquent youth on the society and the central government would be minimal. Are the laws punishing such parents enough? The increase in youth related crime does not tell us so.

Much has been said on many platforms and we are all convinced that investment in our human capital, particularly in the youth, is key in our development process. By now we know that we need to shift focus on building the structures that will continuously train and empower our people to take on challenges that will lead us to the development we have been aiming for. So then, why are we where we are? Well, whiles we went to slumber, President Obama came through the front door to remind us that “From South Korea to Singapore, history shows that countries thrive when they invest in their people”. We did not wake up early enough to tell him that it all sounds too familiar to us.

Contact the author: Vicky Wireko Andoh
Email: [email protected]