Youths Day: Our Expectations In 2021 And Beyond

“Young people are on the frontlines of the struggle to build a better future for all. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the dire need for the kind of transformational change they seek and young people must be full partners in that effort”.
This was a comment of United Nations Secretary- Gen
eral, Antonio Guterres during the 2021 International Youth Day which was celebrated worldwide on 12th August, 2021, with theme, “Transforming Food Systems-Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health”.
In view of this, The Tide reached out to young people to voice out their feelings concerning their hope in 2021and beyond in relation to the theme of this year’s celebration.
Miss Daberechi Nwadike, Student, Rivers State University.
First of all, I hope for a better Nigeria. I pray for good governance, that the health care system should be better equipped especially for the old people and those that cannot fend for themselves. I want good tidings generally. Also, I personally hope that my academics go well for me as a 400 level Agricultural student. I hope to do better as a person so that I can impact on people and the society.
Concerning the theme of this year’s celebration, yes, we should focus more on farming, that is farm in large quantities, food should be more from farms. I would like to farm mostly on vegetables (greens), especially so that we will not import everything from the nothern part of this country.
For health, the environment affects people, like Coronavirus, we,Nigerians do not understand that this is serious. We are walking about without facemasks. Also, environmental sanitation should be dealt with, more money should be allocated into this area because it affects lives. Better healthcare should be available, mostly old people should have a flat rate. Personally,I don’t know if medical personnels here know what they are doing.For example, my friend was treated for malaria instead of treating her for the main disease.
Youths should come out emasse and sensitize people on these importamt issues to safe guard our lives.
Oremi Georgewill, Site Engineer,
I have hope that there will be a better tomorrow for youths in Nigeria. We have to be innovative about our ideas not just waiting for government, at least we should think about what to do to put food on our tables by going on the internet to get information to improve our lives. The hope for 2021 should be positive to help our mindset.
The theme of the celebration is good. We should go into agriculture full time, as youths we have to take care of this aspect with our energy. We have to be out to produce enough food. The youth have to be innovative especially on the marketing and packaging aspect to sustain food production. We need to go the internet and get ideas and relate it to the African setting and create things to sustain our population. In Agriculture, we have different farming areas, we need to go into fish farming. For me, I can go into poultry and fish farming. I still need to improve my skills in this area, this is where government have to come in. Government can bring in the youths into agriculture to make food available, we have the strength to work, let them revive the agricultural sector to create jobs for the youths, we are ready.
On planetary health, there is need to practise good hygiene, the youth need to be clean in all. We can also teach our parents one or two things about health matters because we know so much, like what they need to eat, for example, they should eat fruits to fight germs in their bodies, do small exercises like walking to remove sweat from their bodies. They need to drink enough water to improve metabolism, infact, they need to eat healthy. Also, we should educate our parents to continue reading to improve brain and mental strength. We need to inform our family members and the society at large about these things. With all these, health issues will be minimal.
2021 is post Covid, we are hopeful that the world will come back to reality and start afresh. In Nigeria, we are hopeful that our economy will come out stronger in the midst of insecurity and other bad vices. With hope alive, things will be better in the future.
In Nigeria, agriculture is managed in crude ways and youths are not interested in handling crude methods. Government should come out with modern methods and involve the youths. There are diverse oppourtunities in agriculture which are yet to be harnessed. The youths must wake up and get things done instead of folding our hands for government to do everything. Like me, I have a little garden as a person. I grow small crops and vegetables to help put food on my table. To go into agriculture as youths, we need capital to start off. In other parts of the world, government is helping out in form of grants and funds, let our government be realistic about the agricultural sector and help the youths.
Concerning the health sector, our government is not doing well by allowing our health practitioners move in droves abroad. The government should discourage this and train more manpower in the health sector. It’s is a shame that Nigeria , the giant of Africa is lacking behind by not coming up with a vaccine for Coronavirus, with all our educated medical practitioners. Government should involve the youths more, we have ideas, we can come up with something.