Greetings on International Youth Day Theme: “Youth Engagement for Global Action”
Assalamualaikum.
Nowadays, the lives and aspirations of our youths have been turned upside down by the CoViD-19 pandemic. Many of our youths experience prolonged lockdowns and quarantine at home, without face-to-face communication for education, social and physical connections.
Instantaneously, life as we know it transformed into one full of uncertainties like unemployment, threat of CoViD-19 infection, hunger, lack of internet connectivity, discontinued education and social isolation.
That is why together with our leaders, our youth’s well-being and welfare must be safeguarded, supported and promoted. We must provide our youths continued support in education, health, and opportunities for social, physical and economic participation —all within the bounds of safety and health protocols. We must ensure our youth’s safety and dignity, and make sure they continue to reach their full potentials.
The theme of International Youth Day (IYD) 2020, “Youth Engagement for Global Action” seeks to highlight the ways in which the engagement of young people at the local, national and global levels is enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes, as well as draw lessons on how their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced.
To do this, our youths must be empowered to participate in our decision-making process by providing them opportunities like this 2nd Ranaw Youth Congress where their voices and aspirations can be included and heard.
On our part, our BTA Parliament Office commits to promote youth participation by hiring young people to help formulate policies, resolutions, and bills for consideration of the Parliament. I believe in the power of the youth to make a difference. They are capable of making positive changes. They are resilient, resourceful and peace-builders. Through our sectoral legislations like women, youth, orphans, Marawi IDPs and environment, we aim to change the status quo by highlighting the need for more inclusive policies that address the core of the problem of inequality, poverty and corruption in all forms. Engaging our youths in the political process will result to better policies and laws for our people, not only in Ranaw but the entire Bangsamoro region.
Moreover, so many innovative ideas from my Office’s youth sectoral representatives translated not only in responsive legislations but also into many relevant and worthwhile programs, continuously even during the pandemic. These programs are not just in humanitarian response where we served almost 10,000 at-risk and vulnerable persons and families, but also in the field of arts as well.
Enabling the engagement of youth in formal political mechanisms does increase the fairness of political processes by reducing democratic deficits, contributes to better and more sustainable policies, and also has symbolic importance that can further contribute to restore trust in public institutions, especially among the youths. Moreover, the vast majority of challenges humanity currently faces, such as the COVID-19 outbreak and climate change require concerted global action and the meaningful engagement and participation of young people to be addressed effectively.
The aim of IYD 2020 is to shed light on the need to enable the engagement of the youths by making local, national and global institutions more inclusive for the purpose of strengthening their capacity and relevance to achieve global action.
This year’s IYD seeks to put the spotlight on youth engagement through the following three interconnected streams:
1.Engagement at the local/community level;
2. Engagement at the national level (formulation of laws, policies, and their implementation); and,
3. Engagement at the global level.
By making spaces for our youths in political, economic and social participation, we are thereby empowering their voices to become engaged and initiate more actions towards the betterment of our society, making it more inclusive, fairer, greener and a just world.
Happy International Youth Day!
Maraming Salamat at Mabuhay kayo!
