IYD for whom?
This week was
too hectic for me. I had couple of arrangements to do for International Youth Day
(IYD), 2012 celebrations. My mind was about to burst, but then I succeeded to
survive from its terror. The day before the actual IYD day, I finally managed
to take some quality time out with my best friend.
We went to a fine
restaurant and sat on its garden for tea. I wanted to talk anything other than IYD but I
couldn’t help myself from getting out of its hangover. The IYD conversation
began. I attempted my level best to make him understand about the philosophy
and background about the IYD. However, I failed to fully convince him about its
relevance and sensibleness for common Nepalese youth.
One the other
end of the garden, there were few young boys in a circle. They were smoking (if
you know what I mean), drinking and, above all, having a great time. Some of
them, as per their conversations, failed exams, while some got beaten by
neighbor-tol gangs, etc. But there was a common thing in their lives-they were all unemployed!
The two ends of
the garden had some relations if one could figure out. On our end, we were
talking about IYD theme wanting to partner with youth to make this place a
better world to live in. On the other end, situations of those youth were
referring to an urgency to structure a practical mechanism to solve their
issues. The insight can go even longer if we question ourselves about the practical
ways to partner with youth. This contradiction clearly provides a good insight
about what we lack in this year’s IYD too. It is sure that we again lack the
answer to ‘how can we really partner with them?’
In that case,
for me, this year’s IYD have many reasons to celebrate but still I am unhappy
for not being able to answer to the common queries of common youth. Therefore,
it is justifiable, in my belief, to tag this year’s IYD as ‘IYD for whom?’
