Around the world, young people have played a crucial role in a multitude of social and political movements and transformations.
With a retrospective glance at passionate young people from any era, you'll find impressive catalysts for change.
When we look at some of the most powerful movements or protests across the globe, it's evident that they were fueled by young activists who're poised at both socioeconomic and political circumvention.
From the Parkland Students to the Arab Spring, teenagers and young adults have an undiluted history of pushing for social change.
The Civil Rights Movements (Alabama Marches), the Arab Spring, the Vietnam War Protest, the Tiananmen Square (pre-democracy Movement) and the Indigenous Water Rights Protest for instance. These are at least the five(5) most powerful movements or activism fueled and anchored on the tenant of Youth readiness, determination and strive to restore human dignities.
Currently, Ghana has a young age structure, with approximately 57% of the population under the age of 25.
This age structure denotes more than half of the entire Ghanaian population falls within the category of “Youths”.
Significantly so, it suggests that whatever decision the government of the day takes through policy implementation, it directly affects us more than the others in the age structure.
Intriguingly, it has however been quite unease for many political parties to directly engage the Youth of this nation in drafting their Manifestos and other key policy documents.
As it stands now, the two major political parties in Ghana i.e. the NDC & the NPP have launched their Manifestos.
This is the time for us to come together as young people and sit at the table of reasoning where patriotism, sense of purpose, love for nation and the urgent need for youth development overflows.
The dawn of Election 2020 draws nigh and it's our “call-to-duty” responsibility to critically examine, analyze and peruse both Manifestos. There's therefore the need to among other factors consider which of these two policy documents is geared towards JOB Creation, ACCESS to Primary Health Care, support for Private, Tertiary & TVET Education, support Ghana's Entrepreneurial Spirit, Small & Medium Scale Enterprises, Legalize and Regulate other means of Transportation, Youth Development, to invest heavily in Infrastructure Development and allows All-inclusive Governance to thrive.
With this, we would be able to embrace the political party that truly has the interests of young people at heart, to consider which Manifesto outlines key policy initiatives to transform the lives of young men and women and finally endorse the political that appreciates the fact that young people are the catalysts for our future's breakthrough in technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, agribusiness, finance, telecommunication, cybersecurity, anti-terrorism and nation building.
I couldn't have agreed more with Micaela Iron Shell-Dominguez, when she emphatically said “The Youth Are Tired Of Thinking They Don't Have A Future”.
This is our time, let's take up the moment and make the best out of it.
Let's make decisions that's best for our future and generation yet unborn would be proud of. Decisions that would neither shutter our dreams nor truncate our ambitions but those that would bring us joy, prosperity, peace and tranquility.
CHOOSE WISELY!
The Youths Voice!
The writer of this piece is a Former National Student leader, Youths Development Advocate and a Political Communication Analyst.
bismarktetteh27@gmail.com
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