Youth, take the World Youth Day challenge

Aug 14, 2018

To our parents, elders and leaders, we seek your support, though we are young, give us “important responsibilities", such responsibilities will challenge us and will make us.

By Ssemanda Allawi

As Uganda joins the rest of the world to celebrate World Youth Day, as youth, we must take this day as a Challenge!  It's time to break free from fear, fake online personas and looking at the world through a digital screen display - on your smartphones Facebooking or WhatsApping and conclude that the future is smart as your smartphones!

As youth, we must see better, ask ourselves hard questions. We should not allow the spark of youth to be extinguished in the darkness of a closed room in which the only window to the outside world is a computer and smartphone we normally spend much of our valuable times chatting and pausing for likes. 

We must open wide the doors of our lives, see better to ensure our time and space is filled with meaningful relationships, real people with whom to share our authentic and concrete experiences of daily life. 

Nowadays, there are many colleagues - youth who feel the need to be different from who they really are, in an attempt to adapt to an often artificial and unattainable standard. Many continuously ‘photo-shop' their images, hiding behind masks and false identities, almost becoming fake selves.

Arguably, this sense of inadequacy is the root of many uncertainties and even obsessions, such as "receiving as many ‘likes' as possible" on social media, that many of youth we are willing to take half-naked photos on social media. 

As youth, let's use this day to challenge the fears we face or we anticipate to. The fear of unemployment, the fear of our parents not managing to raise tuition, the fear of failing exams, the fear of being laughed at by our peers for not owning a smart phone but "katooki". This can be achieved by setting goals and priorities and believing in ourselves that yes we can and will make it. Or even by not going after worldly things 100% - which you may call receiving God's grace. Of course Receiving God's grace will not mean life's problems will disappear, but it does have the power to transform our life deeply - at least psychologically. 

The unknown that tomorrow holds for us is not a dark threat we need to overcome, but a favorable time given to us for living out the uniqueness of our personal vocation, and for sharing it with our brothers and sisters and elders. Asking for advice or help when faced with a challenge doesn't in anyway make you a failure but instead it may help you not to fail. Being with others on life's journey is always key, because it helps unlock one's own gifts, inspires dreams and opens new horizons.

As youth, we need to get off Committing our entire life to digital or cyber friends and should not accept to lose the enthusiasm of enjoying others' company and friendship, as well as the pleasure of dreaming together, of walking together. 

That is why it is so important young people break out of the "darkness of a closed room" and the virtual world so as to experience meaningful relationships with real people, other than thousands of "cyber" friends - on social media who we think are friends simply because when we post, they like our posts! 


To our parents, elders and leaders, we seek your support, though we are young, give us "important responsibilities", such responsibilities will challenge us and will make us. As young people, we need to know that someone truly believes in us and for our part as youth, we are ready to have confidence in you. 

To my fellow youth, let us not fear challenges but stand up and face them head on. The only way forward is to face one's fears head on, identify them clearly and come to terms with them so as not to find yourself wasting time and energy by being gripped by empty and faceless ghosts. 

To act we must believe in ourselves, otherwise fear and doubt will make us become inward-looking and closed off to defend ourselves from everything and everyone, and we will remain paralyzed. Youth - we must know that the future belongs to those who are prepared, fearless and courageous not for those who are searching only for comfort zone(s) and who withdraw whenever difficulties arise. We must be ready for challenge and my question is, are you ready and do you accept the challenge?


The writer is a PhD student of International Relations and Diplomatic Studies

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});