By Youth Empowerment: One of the measures for social justice | Unisha Aryal
Human beings are social well-being who are different from other animals in terms of their wisdom, knowledge, and skills. They are the best creatures in society.
They stay in society and live in a family; a primary unit of society. Even in a family, a system must be developed for equal opportunities for each and every member.
In recent years, the term “social justice” has gained prominence on par with “human rights.” It’s essentially a societal sense of fairness. This holds true for wealth distribution, opportunity, fundamental requirements, and more. Social justice is the virtue that guides us as we create the institutions that manage human interactions.
Social justice promotes people equally for development and empowerment. There are various parts of social justice to make society function well. And one of them is ‘youth empowerment.
Young people gain the ability, authority, and agency to make decisions and execute change in their own lives and the lives of others, including adolescents and adults, through an attitudinal, structural, and cultural process. Youth Empowerment is encouraging youth in whatever way possible. It is an endeavor to chart a course for them to follow in order to stay afloat and adapt to changing circumstances.
This strives to improve the quality of life for young people and to empower them by providing them with resources that will enable them to gain confidence and work toward growth and change.
Youth empowerment aims to improve the community by fostering the development of strong, self-reliant individuals. The activities aimed at youth empowerment are geared toward personal growth, international equity, civic engagement, and democracy strengthening. Youth empowerment will contribute to a better tomorrow by raising people’s living standards.
Promoting youth rights, young activism, and standing up for what is right are all part of the strategy. It instills principles in people in order to help them become better people. It is the most effective technique of ensuring the country’s future prosperity.
In order to effectively empower young people, our culture must be deliberate in how youth are integrated into communities and organizations. Some of the points should be taken into considerations for empowering youths and they are as follows:
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The youth’s voice should be respected.
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To make the community a better environment for both young people and adults, be willing to share your adult power and privilege.
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Involve young people in decision-making.
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Recognize and act on their candid comments and suggestions.
Youth empowerment will contribute to a better tomorrow by raising people’s living standards.
Promoting youth rights, young activism, and standing up for what is right are all part of the strategy. It instills principles in people in order to help them become better people. It is the most effective technique of ensuring the country’s future prosperity.
There is various importance of youth empowerment where social justice is present automatically. The importance is as follows:
1. Good Education Standard
Youth empowerment will assist young people to recognize the value of soft skills training and education, which will inevitably lead to a stronger school system. Understanding the value of education can help you improve your life in a variety of ways.
In a developing country, having a quality education system is critical in fostering the development of a brighter future.
2. Better Standard of Living
This empowerment of youth, who are the country’s future, will serve as a stepping stone toward a brighter future. Empowering them will enable them to study and achieve, which will contribute to their future success and enable them to live a normal life.
3. Crime Reduction
Empowering a person would undoubtedly assist him in obtaining life skills training that will assist him in leading a good life away from illegal activities. Empowering the youth will allow them to have a better understanding of the crimes and will ensure that they oppose anti-social behavior.
4. Poverty Eradication
It will also aid in the reduction of poverty. The goal of youth empowerment is to help them grow and develop their skills. When our youths are given the necessary skills, they will be able to have a better life later on. It’s like making a present-day investment that will pay off later. To improve young employability, which will contribute to the nation’s GDP and economy.
Social justice youth empowerment aims to give adolescents access to the means of exercising sociopolitical control, with a particular focus on self-efficacy, motivation, competence, and control in relation to social and political issues. Increased good developmental outcomes are linked to increasing youths’ perceived empowerment and ability to effect change.
The intentional use of ‘youth leadership’ to help and motivate high-risk, marginalized kids in their quest for a more positive, engaged, and meaningful life.
There are various initiatives started to solve the social problems like The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Ideas for Action, etc. which helped young people to be engaged in the developmental issues. Social justice cannot be obtained by solely ignoring the economic side of the country.
For sustainable growth, the economic side must be taken into considerations for balancing social justice. The economy plays an important role in every development in society. Investing in youth empowerment is a viable technique for increasing trade human capital. Many developing countries have large numbers of underemployed and jobless young people who could be trained to meet future labor market demands.
The Sustainable Development Goals place a strong emphasis on the link between youth skills and employment. For example, to promote employment, good jobs, and entrepreneurship, asks for a significant rise in the number of young people with relevant skills – including technical and vocational abilities.
In Nepal, we can see the examples of various youths who are achieving success at a young age whether it is in education, entertainment, or politics as well. Ranju Darshana is a young politician and also a youth activist of Nepal, who started the journey of youth politics at the age of seventeen.
Thus, youths must be provided with enough platforms to be developed in a society being engaged in various programs and skill development activities.
There must be proper implementation of youth empowerment policies for making society function prosperously. Increased good developmental outcomes are linked to increasing youths’ perceived empowerment and ability to effect change. A lack of other protective variables has been found to be mitigated by access to sociopolitical control in particular.
Youth service providers should be aware of the advantages of empowerment and endeavor to establish and encourage sociopolitical control possibilities. There is a need for more research on how to implement and best practices for social justice youth development in a variety of groups and communities.
Read More From Unisha Aryal:
How Are Teenagers Living The Lockdown? | [Article by Unisha Aryal]
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