The Current Vaccum

70% of the total population of Pakistan is under the age of 29. They present a big reservoir of energy. Unfortunately this energy is not put to proper use. The youth of Pakistan are caught in a multitude of problems like social exclusion, discrimination, illiteracy, poverty, remorselessness, social taboos, drugs, guns, violence and politics. The cost of neglecting youth can be measured in terms of increasing incidences of crime and terrorist activities, depletion of human and social capital. According to many TV channels and daily newspapers current crime and suicidal rates have broken all the records in Pakistan.

Pakistani society at large fails in honoring and valuing the lives of young people as well as developing an effective way to reach socially-excluded, at-risks, juvenile delinquents, drug addicts or overindulged youth. It fails to take them out of their corrupting environment and put them in a service force. We have taken the responsibility to provide a national leadership on the development and promotion of youth-led development programs to help young people feel respected and empowered, to help young people in re-establishing their identities and to channel the energies of young people towards constructive action. Our society has accumulated a great backlog of needs and does not command the resources to pay for them in full via market. Hence, it is quite important from a sheer societal functional point of view to find ways to advance the common good through Youth Service volunteers who are not cost-free but who are costless. The Youth-led Development Program is needed because there is no other way to meet the needs of these individuals that would be humane. Our nation needs the active contributions of young people to address challenges in areas such as education, employment, skill building, health, emergency responses, drug use, crime, care for the elderly and disabled. These are just a few areas in which young people can improve the quality of life in Pakistan, by providing services not readily found in the labor force. We are convinced that many of these needs can be met or partially met by the Youth Service volunteers contributions, where youth learn best by doing, where commitment is demonstrated through action and where there are many societal needs to be met. It will improve the economic viability of the nation in the long run by increasing the employability of those who serve and learn. It will help to head off violence, crime and terrorism from the society.

The 1992 Pakistan Demographic Survey found violence to be the second most common cause of death between 15 to 39 years. In addition to that, the recent events in Pakistan has clearly revealed that behind almost all the acts of extreme violence and terrorism, young people living in low-income communities are involved. This clearly shows that orthodox approaches and thinking have totally failed. In the past and still today, focus is laid on spending millions of dollars on building new jails, punishing and hunting down young criminal and drug addicts and developing programs that treat young people as a problem or as empty vessels into which we intend to pour our wisdom.

In addition to this, Pakistan is ranked at number one in gender discrimination by many researchers. A vast majority of young girls are subjected to many forms of discrimination. It would not be wrong to say that our social, political and religious institutions are manufacturing risks and making the lives of young people impossible. Recent events in Pakistan have clearly shown that all these measures have been absolutely failed. We desperately need a new engine and we need it right now regardless of its price because it will never cost us as much as we are loosing now in shape of the lives of young people and many innocent people. We firmly believe that Youth should become a national emergency. We believe it is a “fateful time” in our history and needs to be taken seriously.

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