Youth Empowerment

How to empower the Youth is an important question to ponder upon. We all talk about and hold conferences and seminars
for Youth Empowerment and the need to enable a nations youth to take the decisions of their lives that will in future affect
them and others. But if we go step by step and seek to discover what it really means, what are the factors or organizations that
play a major role in shaping and molding the youth and its decisions, and finally to derive out the consequences that we can
see as a result of an effective youth empowerment programme, we can actually get a step closer in discovering the solution to
the question- How to empower the Youth?
Making it simple, let us try to understand the meaning of the term word by word i.e. Youth Empowerment.
What does Youth mean?
Giving the definition from Wikipedia, Youth is the time of life when one is young, but often means the time between childhood
and adulthood. Here, I would like to stress on the idea that a particular age period cannot be defined for being youthful. It is
entirely dependent on ones own idea of whether they still consider themselves as being a part of youth brigade or not.
Probably thats the reason why Mr. Rahul Gandhi is still projected as youth icon being 43 years old, by the Congress party,
which is still a thoughtful debate whether he really deserves to be called so or not. Leaving such discussion to political arena
itself, we move ahead to analyze the idea of what Youth Empowerment means and know How to Empower the Youth.
Meaning of the Word Empowerment
Empowerment can be said as enabling a person to take own decisions, providing with an ability to go forth and doing
something on their own. Empowering a person is an idea of building self confidence in them, being allowed to venture on new
ideas. We talk about Women Empowerment as well. What I believe is that if we even just focus on youth empowerment itself,
we would not have to worry much about empowering women, because that will come up by itself if the youth becomes aware
of its duties, responsibilities and powers that it has got and would work towards gender equality and empowering women to the
best level.
How to empower the youth
Now the various factors that play a major role in this process of building and structuring the very concept of youth
empowerment, I would state them as following :
Government sector ministries
The government must develop a national youth policy that integrate with other sectoral policies such as that of education,
health, employment, energy, environment, etc. so that wholesome development takes place and youth can benefit from
other sectoral policies as well.
The establishment of Youth Councils must take place and all efforts must be made to strengthen and support the youth
councils at national, district and local levels. It must be ensured that there is proper participation and representation of yuth
council at all levels of governance and bureaucracy.
Various industrial training institutes must be set up at the national and district levels to increase the employability of the
youth. This gives one answer from several others to the question of how to empower the youth. Employmentis one one issue
that must be studied in detail with reference to the Youth Issues.
Entrepreneurship programmes must be given importance along with youth development programmes to empower the
youth to take their own decisions and set up their own enterprises.
Full support and a push to the youth led associations/cooperatives that provide micro-credit and financing facilities to the
small business enterprises.
Non-governmental and civil society organizations
Apart from government support, the NGOs and other civil society organizations also help to provide solution to the question
of How to Empower the Youth-
When various national policies are framed, the youth must be able to voice its opinions. In this the non-governmental and civil
society organizations can play a major role by helping the youth reach the decision making bodies and the participation in the
governance process at national, district and local levels.
The capacity of the youth organizations must be strengthened and their networking with the community based organizations
must be improved. This plays an important role in catering to the question of how to empower the youth. Various marginalized
youth groups are needed to be given enough support and their problems must be addressed with full attention. These
marginalized groups may include rural women, youth with disabilities, and youth living with HIV and AIDS.
Apart from the help received from the government side on providing micro-credit finance facilities, the non-governmental and
civil society organizations can also organize youth development programmes while offering them a wide range of practical
and industrial training to improve their capabilities to avail entrepreneurship opportunities.
Along with that they can provide life skills training through various youth leadership programmes that can be given by
respected leaders from the industry itself.
Mobilization of resources for youth development programmes so that they can be best used to help develop the economy
and improve the standard of living of one and all.
the awareness regarding various issues such as environment, health, education etc must be raised through various youth
development programmes and this can be done effectively be Youth Clubs.
Role of Youth councils/forums while discoveringHow to Empower the Youth
Various youth councils can play a major role in sensitizing and organizing the youth as a unified body that engages
enthusiastically in political, economic and socio-cultural activities.
Youth forums and Youth councils can act as voice of the youth in raising awareness among the governance and decision
making bodies regarding the issues concerning the youth.
These councils and youth forums protect the youth from being manipulated by various self serving organizations on the basis
of age, gender, religion, creed etc.
Parents/care takers of youth
The last but certainly not the least. The first step for encouragement comes from the families and parents of the youth to allow
them to take the plunge and try out new ideas and ventures. If this initial support is not provided then the youths immense
potential can stay untouched and underutilized. Therefore the parents and caretakers must see that the youth is given ample
opportunities and is motivated at all levels to adopt healthy decision making and entrepreneurship opportunities.
Parents must increase communication with their young sons and daughters and give them a feeling of empowerment. They
must be valued, respected, and encouraged for their decisions. Parents must ask themselves the question of how to
empower the youth and they will know what they must be doing for the betterment of the lives of their children.
Therefore, addressing the role of various factors and institutions that can help toempower the youth, we can certainly achieve
full growth potential of a nations youth and become a developed economy in all senses