Water youth tree for national growth

Steve Lyston, Contributor

If we want to create an economy-friendly environment then the number one focus must be on the youth. New solutions and ideas, even for job creation, will come from them; and if we are desperate for change as a nation, then we must be willing to change with the times.

In the youth lie 21st-century ideas that can move our nation forward.

The global recession and serious unemployment nations face, a major part of the problem, in addition to greed, is failure to make a transition to the next generation - the youth. The theories and ideologies of the old order are not fit for the generation in which we are currently. We are now surrounded by a sea of youth, who grew up while we weren't paying attention, and the nations don't know what to do with them.

Recent statistics show that one in every four young workers is unemployed in developed countries, and in developing countries many of them are living in poverty.

The economic model practised by most countries focuses more on the financial aspect rather than on the building and development of human resources.

Opportunities

In sports and entertainment, it is the youth that are impacting the nations and bringing favourable, positive attention to their nations. But in the areas of political and business leadership and even in the Church, they are not being allowed the opportunities to make greater impact. In the church they are given one corner of the building to go and 'be themselves' or 'do what young people do', so that the leaders and the older people don't have to deal with them directly - out of sight, out of mind.

Oftentimes, the nation focuses on business investors and how to please them into investing, while the youth, and the family are ignored. Unless this changes, then there is serious instability ahead.

We need to get it clear in our minds what we deem the youth in terms of age. Biblically, we have seen God use an eight-year-old to become king. He has even used those at the ages of 21 and 30, and by the time they reached the age of 30, they were well advanced in their knowledge and understanding of national and business leadership.

Three of the creators of Facebook, one of the most widely used social networks in the world today, were all under 21 when it was created and launched eight years ago. Facebook has changed the way in which the world communicates. Jamaica's own Usain Bolt is another good example. It means we need to revisit many of our systems - our training and mentoring of the youth.

We cannot continue to look at other countries to see what methods they use, we need to create our own plans for the youth that are in line with our own culture and the needs of these young people.

We need to look carefully at who are our role models in the society for our youth. In times gone by, anyone who was involved in leadership even at the community level, and became involved in what we understand to be a common-law relationship, they would be under serious scrutiny from the community and from those above them.

Basic schools in the past did a better job at laying the foundation for our children - teaching them basic necessities such as phonics, and greater emphasis was placed on ensuring that our children learnt how to read.

Little being done

Today, there is very little being done in these and other areas to give our youth an opportunity to succeed. Our teachers then, deemed it important to see to the success of the children under their care. Teachers, particularly those in the inner cities, should be given greater compensation to help and deal with the children.

Inner-city teachers face greater challenges - greater lack, abuse, brokenness - that others may not have to deal with on a daily basis.

Business people are encouraged to invest in the youth by helping each school to have a breakfast programme. Many leave home hungry and are expected to have the same attention span and focus as a child who has a meal each morning.

When these students fail to make the grade, they are then called failures. There needs to be greater support from the business community regarding this issue.

Steve Lyston is a biblical economics consultant and author of several books, including 'End Time Finance' and, 'The New Millionaire'.