It’s international youth day!! yiipeeee!!!!! Happy international youth day to those who are biologically youths and the youths at hearts.
The international youth day theme for 2022 is intergenerational solidarity what’s that you say? Intergenerational solidarity refers to the degree of closeness and support between different generations. The notion of solidarity helps us to understand how people of different generations relate to, help and depend on one another in their daily lives.
According to UN Women “To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world needs to leverage the full potential of all generations”, this we agree with, we agree with this because we all depended on and still depend on some people at different ages and stages in life, especially the generation ahead of us therefore, we must collaborate to foster successful and equitable intergenerational relations and partnerships to ensure “no one is left behind.”.
The Global Report on Ageism launched by the United Nations in March 2021 highlights the many data gaps that exist with regards to ageism against youth. Despite this lack of research, young people continue to report age-related barriers in various spheres of their lives such as employment, political participation, wealth creation, health, justice and in some cases proper education. On an individual level, these age-related obstacles can deeply impact wellbeing and livelihoods if not properly tackled not only during the youth years, but also in adulthood. On a societal level, ageism prevents us from thinking and designing policies and social services that adopt a life-course approach and are fair for all ages.
It is therefore time for us to focus on policies that address the ageism, not just for the youth but for all generations, we need to work on stepping down knowledge, skills and technical know-how to the next generation, not just formal education, we need to show the young ones the genuine and sustainable ways of making sustainable income in different careers, make opportunities available, show them the challenges and sacrifices faced in achieving success, so that we don’t continue to raise entitled youths or give wrong impression about wealth creation which is killing us as people and depleting the resources and endangering generations yet unborn.
It’s time for all the generations, silent generation, the boomer generation, GenX, the millennials (gen Y), gen Z, to work on a sustainable planet for the gen Alpha and generations after that.
If we continue the man-eat-man to survive lifestyle we are living now, we are all at risk, not just us but generations after us.
once again, happy international youth day.
XoXo
WhoopyYun
