Facilitating environment needed for youth to thrive

Our nation’s young people must be encouraged and allowed to dream if they are to reach their fullest potential.

So says General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), Senator Toni Moore, who said that the BWU recognises that need and is prepared to do its part to make it a reality.

Senator Moore made the comments while delivering remarks during the opening ceremony of the BWU’s Youth Congress held at Solidarity House on Friday morning, under the theme “The Future We Want”. She made the point while noting that in tackling the challenges facing youth, society has to develop a different kind of approach, one where they are not talking to or about the youth, but engaging them in discussion.

“The Union, like many organisations, has had to accept that if we are to solve the most pressing issues of our time, we need the dynamism of youth movements and young social entrepreneurs that have the potential to disrupt the inertia in our society. Now at all levels we need that; in the Union movement we need that. We have so many objectives that we set for making things better, for seeing improvements, but when we talk about rocking the boat or shaking inertia that is OK for many as an objective, but when the truth of it hits home, or the reality of it comes close, many of us are unable to handle it,” she said.

Moore added, “Have you experienced that as young people where you want to do things different and people tell you feel free, we want to embrace you doing things differently, but the moment that you try to do it you get slapped down?”

The union boss, reflecting on that, urged the young people present not to become daunted by such, but rather to push through to ensure success. She made the call while maintaining that they should not accept rejection as the final position.

“Indeed, if young people are going to claim the future they want, then young people would need to be more persistent; and for the older ones, when disruption comes and you are persistent, they have to find a way to accept it,” she said.

Senator Moore said it is important going forward to give the youth the confidence they require to have control over their lives and to feel a sense of worth in their jobs. Her comments came as she referred to statistics out of the United Kingdom, which show that one in four young people are feeling entrapped in the jobs they do. Moore lamented that too many youth are seeing jobs not as a means of enfranchisement and empowerment, but a means of getting by.

“That in itself is a challenge because it means people can’t be engaged, you’re just doing what you’re doing to get a little something, but you don’t do see any future in what you’re doing,” she said.
As such, she said that entities like the unions, government and the private sector must not only be prepared to talk the talk, but walk the walk to make the youth feel there is a space for them, and that they can work hand in hand with others to create a space for generations to come.
(JRT)