We are the future and hope of our community

We are  the future and hope of our community

"The world's biggest power is the youth and the beauty of a woman"-Chanakya

Today,12th of August,2016, marks International Youth Day....And if you can vividly remember, sometime this same day(three years back), we launched for the first time in Damongo the International Youth Day Celebration and the Youth Manifesto with proud support from Denmark Civil society organisation, GCRN and Radio for Peace and Development.
That was the beginning of the journey that brought us this far...

But the interesting question remains:Have we really been able to do anything meaningful with the opportunity offered us, and our collaboration with relevant stakeholders for the benefit of the youth and our community? I say an emphatic yes, though with little challenges.

Three years down the memory lane, has the community benefited from our exuberance, and how does the future looks like if we hold onto the spirit of youth?

The future appears promising from where I stand as a youth,but only if we re-focus our sense of purpose and direction.
Let's ask ourselves, where we came from;what we stand for and where we want our community to be placed in the not too distant future!
We hold the power and the strength! Thankfully, we have listening and willing leaders to partner, edge us on and give us the needed push.
Hence, for most of the time, my heart bleed with pain, when I see us  trying to abuse this golden opportunity.

Instead of being actors of change, we turn ourselves into enemies of our community by the sort of things we do (Divisive politics and lack of respect for elders stemming from difference in political ideologies).
We turn ourselves into enemies of our community when we engage in unnecessary banter and throw salvos at each other.
We turn ourselves into enemies of our community when we try to reduce the integrity of this au-gust house, and refuse to measure the content of our messages...

This is the moment of sober reflection and deep introspection. We have achieved a lot, and we have fallen apart a lot.
But in all these, there is hope for the future, if we can pick and patch the pieces together.
Let's keep this in mind, "youth is not a time of life; it's a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple needs;it's a matter of the will, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotion; it's the freshness of the deep sprint of life"-Samuel Ullman

We are the hope of our community and country, and we are the flame that will spark the change and needed transformation in our dear community.

Long live the youth of Damongo!Long live Damongo and gonjaland as a whole, long live Damongo Youth Parliament (DYP); and may the good lord bless us all and fasten us together in unity of purpose for community and country.

By:ANANPANSAH, B ABRAHAM(AB)
Radio Presenter/Youth activist
0241129910