Facebook
(This post is from Abdulrahman, one of AFY's youth activists in Nigeria)
My voice alone like one in the wind, easily drowned in the noise,
My voice alone like one in the wind, easily drowned in the noise,
My hand alone like a lonesome soldier can only do so much,
My course noble and true yet alone may not catch the sunset.
I am tomorrow, I am the future, and my voice is strong with purpose and ability, but the travel if done alone, an uphill task it becomes…..
Today the world is thriving in the face of advancement in technology, ideology and purpose. Opportunity and speed lurks in every corner, every path. Society today is experiencing changes that are unprecedented and border on supernatural. The cars, the planes, the thinking, strategies, communication, even to sports and entertainment have gone from mere activities to systematic development of ingenious strategies. Indeed the world has come very far. However one should stop to think and ask “where does this leave me?” You see all these is good and praise worthy, but while we bask in our levels of achievement and remarkable prowess, we the youths should proceed with a critical look on the future that seems to be in the pipeline for us.
Organizations like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Guinness, nokia, telecommunication companies like mtn, glo, also the banking sector e.t.c spend top dollar (recession or not) on various forms of social responsibility. However it is interesting to note that not a dime of this money finds its way into youth targeted sexual reproductive health programmes. I mean how many youth friendly health care centers have these organizations provided? How many Sexual reproductive health Education materials have these guys distributed? Then ask yourself, how many of such programmes and materials can these guys afford? It is rather painful that instead of the above these organizations put together shows, parties and concerts where they pay huge amounts of money to have international rap artists, hip hop stars e.t.c come and entertain young people. Even more painful is the fact that 95% of the message content of these guys’ songs are negative and promote indiscriminate and highly irresponsible sexual culture among the youths. I mean its one thing not to spend money on the right things; it’s another thing to expend such enormous resources on things that are detrimental to the health of young people and ultimately detrimental to their future.
Yet you have young people go for these concerts in their hundreds of thousands, spending good money for gate fees, to participate in unwholesome and unhealthy activities as well as have their mind set programmed to accept the sexual culture portrayed by in the songs and music videos they’ve been exposed to.
How much greater good would these resources do if they were channeled towards availability of youth friendly health care centers, youth targeted sexual reproductive health programmes, sexual reproductive health education materials.
Again one is reminded of the unparalleled changes taking place in the world today, however we need to start asking questions, and asking the right questions too. If you feel these things are topics for other days, I implore you to please get the statistics, you will be shocked!!
I am a youth that has chosen to ask questions, and view the future with a more critical perspective than many others. I have chosen to speak and make my voice loud, clear and demanding of audience, one voice however will only go so far. I implore you…… Let us raise our voices together, let’s make a difference.
Get email updates and action alerts:
by AFY_Samantha
by AFY_Samantha
by AFY_Samantha
This is a very good one i must comment, it is touching and i must say their is a room for to create an avenue for young people to get good information about their sexually reproductive health.