The role of youth in creating the culture of peace
(Continued from yerterday)
YOUTH empowerment The key to bringing the youth’s potential to bring ripples of change is to empower them. This is what we aimed to achieve in the Philippines when we enacted the Sangguniang Kabataan, or Youth Council, Reform Act. This is a law that seeks to encourage an environment of teamwork and collaboration among youth leaders and youth organizations as they participate and lend a youth perspective to our democratic institutions.
Our local youth councils are given ten percent (10%) of the local village’s general fund to be used solely for youth development and empowerment purposes.
Some of their programs include computer literacy trainings, organization of youth cooperatives, reproductive health seminars, anti-drug abuse campaigns, cultural festivals, sports trainings and intramurals, and livelihood avenues for out-of-school youth.
On a positive note, the global youth agenda has caught the attention of the international stage resulting in more concrete actions on the role of youth such as the Youth 2030: The United Nations Youth Strategy and the UN Security Council Resolution 2250.
Both provide an avenue for the youth to be in the thick of policy-making and actions on peace and security and young people’s needs in the global, regional, and national stages.
The youth is the hope of our future
Our Philippine national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, has an oft-quoted statement. He said “Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan,” which means “The youth is the hope of our future.” As simplistic as it may sound, it is the truth. If we do not like the world we live in now, we are its only hope to disrupt the status quo and transform it into the world we want to live in.
All of us here – young leaders and trailblazers of their countries – are pebbles that will effect the ripples of change in the echelons we occupy.
We are the architects of the peace we aspire, we are the creators of the future we envision. Decades from now, what world are we going to share with the youth of that age? As they gather in a youth forum, will they gather to mend a world of discord or to continue the world of peace we have created?
As I close my message, allow me to mention and honor aman of peace, one of the prime movers of the Asia Pacific Summit. He is none other than my greatest mentor, my father Jose de Venecia Jr.
Believing in the power of dialogue and cooperation as a path to peace, he founded the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) in the year 2000 and which now represents some 350 ruling, opposition and independent political parties from 52 countries in Asia.
My father also initiated and co-founded the Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council (APRC), with former Thai Deputy Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai. The APRC is composed of former heads of governments, leaders of parliament, foreign ministers and policymakers who are united in vision to achieve peace in Asia. He is also the Co-Chairman of the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP) and Chairman Emeritus of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF).
To reduce politico-religious conflicts and tensions in various parts of the world, my father also initiated the Interfaith Dialogue in the United Nations in 2004, involving Christians, Muslims, both Sunnis and Shiites, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and other religious groups, which the UN approved and began to carry out. Before this period, inter-religious discussions were considered taboo in the UN system.
With the legacy of peace-building my father and his peers have started, I hope of all us here, leaders of our young generation, can and will bear the torch of peace and keep it aflame until it is time to pass it onto the next generation.