International Youth Day
Sqn Ldr Delshad Master (She/ Her)
Queer Sensitisation Catalyst || Global Speaker || TEDx Speaker || LGBT+ Ally || Toastmaster || Proud PSAI Member || Theatre Artist || Upcoming Author of 'Help! My Kid's Queer.' ||
Theme : Youth Engagement for global action
The most underutilised and underestimated energy resource today is the ‘Power of Youth’. With every passing generation, our youth only get more and more powerful because of the access they have to technology and the world today.
Yet this very resource of Technology is misutilised by us, the adults who are supposed to guide and channel the energies of youth in the right direction. I am not even referring to sexual content or pornography. I speak purely of political, religious and socio-cultural content they are exposed to.
Most kids today think they are sorted and know which side to stand on when it comes to their political and religious opinions. We (social media) repeatedly feeds our youth images, videos and content that will serve their own ulterior motives. So, even when a youngster believes that they are thinking for themselves, they really aren’t, they are just being brainwashed via content dictated by algorithms.
The answer to every question, for this generation is simply a few clicks away on the search engine they might be using. The prompts they give and the questions they ask, throw up the responses that their minds are tilting towards. A few more clicks, take them down a spiral of related content, thereby almost permanently constructing their world view on the subject. The more the numbers, the bigger the majority formation.
Energy that can be utilised more positively and constructively ends up getting dissipated when their ‘generated’ opinions are splashed across different social media channels.
This Youth Day: let’s engage our most powerful resource to step out of the bounds of their gadgets and experience the world that lies beyond? the screens. Their collective efforts and energies can spurn more local, national? and global action when seen with their own eyes and worked with their own hands.?
This is not to say that technology musn’t exist, but that tech should be used to connect and bind this powerful resource to jump into action that leads to measurable results not just verbal, written or physical protests and condemnation of what they are made to believe may be right or wrong.?