#YouthSkillsWork

Trust Youth for (a) Change

According to The Mo Ibrahim Foundation report titled African Youth: Fulfilling the Potential, the continental average age is 20 years old, but the average age of our African leaders is 62. Africa’s tradition of rule by the elders – some of whom, unfortunately, assert a right to govern in perpetuity presents a challenge for youth to influence their country’s leadership in some states. This disconnect due to a variety of cultural, religious and traditional beliefs, between us and our elders, hampers and makes it difficult to solve our issues together. Maybe, we are ‘threatening’ and our elders do not want our questions. How can we approach our leaders in a way that is non-threatening and amicable?  One of the ways to do this, which Youth are increasingly recognising, is through meaningful intergenerational dialogue.

As a youth, I have started to question whether our leaders are listening to and including youth in policy decisions. No, I am not denying that we aren’t being consulted; instead what I experience is a once a year youth month celebration which serves as platform for input from youth, and then it is business as usual. This is not necessarily best practice inclusive decision-making. Youth groups are fragmented amongst the bigger structures of leadership and we exist as sub groups from exactly those structures that make resolutions for us. We are disjointed in almost every platform where decisions are made. How possible is it for us to push integration of youth and inclusive participation? We cannot always exist as just networks of youths or young individuals. How about a Youth Affirmative Action Policy? Is that idea too radical as well? We don’t want to be included because of our category, but because we have valuable knowledge and innovative ideas needed to bring about change.

The ideas and models that are being used for youth development are still the same as in the past, yet our priorities have shifted in many ways. Our leaders are doing the same things repeatedly, expecting different outcomes. There are examples of programmes such as Activate! Leadership and Public Innovation that capacitates youth at a local level then connect them together to reach a critical mass of action that can positively develop and drive innovation at a country level.  Making us as youth relative to the conversations and structures and to push for reforms using innovative ideas and providing new approaches to the same old problems our leaders are trying to fix.

In South Africa, discourse on youth is increasingly negative. We are referred to as a ticking-time bomb. We are often told that we are disengaged. Headlines in some media describe our aggressiveness and frustration. While we are being described in our deficit over and over, there are actually youths in our communities trying their level best at changing their circumstances for themselves and those in their communities. Let us look at CNN heroes’ nominee Thulani Madondo, and many other youths like him across the continent. We have an abundance of success stories to celebrate. Our perception of ourselves and the positive change we can contribute are extremely positive. These success stories are indications that youth are ready to meaningfully participate when it comes to solving the issues that affect us the most. Is it not also an indication that Africa does have dynamic and powerful youths who can navigate through structures of power with the valuable new knowledge we have? Youth have been so instrumental in change and used social media as a tool to achieve social justice. Many examples from Tunisia’s Virtual Voices, Twestival and the Arab Spring are some of them.

There are important leaders from our past including Ashley Kriel and the youth of 1976, and we acknowledge them, but this is the youth of NOW. The awareness of struggle heroes as champions of change and the previous generation of youth who had the ability to defy large structures are still romanticised, as much as we envisage our contribution that we are about to make. We are bound to do things differently even if we consciously remember those from our histories; we seek new ways at solving our problems. We are reinventing ourselves and defining our own vision. We can learn from the past, we can learn from the previous generation, but not everything.

My proposed solution is that succession planning is made for younger leadership and that more spaces or enabling environments are created for intergenerational dialogue where youth can participate in decision-making processes. More importantly, that our leaders, governments, business, communities, trust us. Otherwise, we will never ever convince ourselves of the value we are to this continent.  

Trust us for a change.

Africa’s most prized assets, Youth.