KARACHI, Dec 28: Speakers at a seminar here on Saturday suggested that youth, who are the future leaders of the country, be provided all the information, quality education and equal opportunities so that they can lived in a better society.
At the seminar on “Making a Difference - Empowering Young People,” jointly organized by Unicef and the Pakistan Voluntary Health and Nutrition Association (PAVHNA), they said the youth and adolescent population - aged 20-25 years - comprised more than 60 per cent of the total population of the country and yet this huge group of people were being neglected and they had no say in any matter, even relating to their lives.
They said it was important to promote and protect the rights of the youth and adolescents to education, information and life skills in safe and supportive living and learning environment and provide opportunities for their participation in programmes dealing with national issues.
The speakers said the future development of the country lay in the hands of the youth - the future leaders - so it was necessary that they were given necessary skills, knowledge, and opportunities they needed to make the country abetter to place to live in.
They said reproductive health issues were one of the major areas in which the youth could not get correct information. As their bodies were undergoing various changes and owing to lack of authentic information they got confused and sometimes fell prey to the socalled sex clinics being operated by quacks at numerous places.
They suggested that reproductive health be included in the curriculum at the secondary school levels so that not only they were able to understand, and help others as well, the situation but were also able to handle the situation if they faced any such problem.
They said the government was formulating a youth policy and hopefully it would deal with all the issues being faced by the youth. They said many a time good policies were formulated, but the these were not implemented effectively, so could not give desired results.
They also urged the NGOs, community-based organizations and the government develop networking so that rather than working in isolation or repeating the work being done by one group and wasting scarce resources available, they supplemented one another’s work.
One of the representatives of the youth asked why the NGOs organized such trainings, meetings, seminars, workshops in expensive hotels, and spent large amounts. These could be organized at inexpensive places like youth centres, etc, and the resources saved could be diverted to the service delivery side of the project.
A speaker said the issues relating to reproductive health were being taught to the teachers during their training programmes and they were advised to discuss these issues in the class when they felt the students were ready to listen and learn about such issues. However, when it became a part of the curriculum then it could be taught formally like other subjects.
A representative of the organizers giving a brief resume of the PAVHNA said it had been working in health, specially the reproductive health sector, since 1979 in partnership with other civil society organizations, donors and the government to bring about qualitative changes in society that went beyond the reproductive health issues.
UNICEF representative Shahla Rashiduddin, Anwar Ahmedzai of the Education Department, Afsheen Ahmed, Dr Yasmeen S. Qazi, S. A. Qayyum, Jabeen Abbas, Seema Tahir, Fauzia Matloob, Rehana Rashdi, and representatives of the youth - Uzma Siddiq, Parveen Niaz, Adeel, Shafqat, Imran Ayub - and others also spoke. A skit was also presented highlighting the reproductive health issues of the youth.
