Do youth matter?

When I tell people about my work in international development, health and education, I am usually asked how I got into the field to begin with. Jokingly, I usually offer a pathetic response: “It wasn’t intentional,” I’ve been known to quip. I have come to realize, nothing this good is intentional. I came upon my work with the Student Movement for Real Change because as a young person, I saw a problem that could be addressed through the vast resources available to me and my community, and I felt a burning sense of responsibility. I asked myself a simple question: “If I don’t do something, who will?”

The personal belief that I am able to and responsible for fighting global poverty admittedly reeks of either hubris or naiveté. At 18 years old, it was certainly a combination of both. Yet, the idealistic nature of youthful efforts is not simply the result of feel good activities or liberal activism. Today, the work of young people has taken on a different hue. We operate in the world of can and now, rather than the paradigm of the past that told young people to work their way up to importance and significance. And we are justified in our actions and grandiosity.

My work over the better part of the past decade – from a conversation with friends around a coffee table, to my semi-committed effort to develop a nascent non-profit, to the management of a small but not insignificant non-profit organization – has been inspiring because of the remarkably committed people I have met and worked with along the way. Their stories have made my story – not the other way around.

The work of young people is not confined to individual acts of kindness – though they are innumerable and invaluable. Youth are the key ingredient to understanding major foreign and economic trends, and could be the missing link in the global quest for opportunity and wealth. Young people, between 18-30 years, are the most likely of all age groups to venture into uncharted territory for the experience – to gain wisdom from what they believe will be a transformative growth experience. We approach the world without preconceived notions, conditions, or expectations. We are only aware that the world is vast but within our reach, and that it is rife with hardships, but presents nothing that we cannot handle or solve.

Issue areas that the current generation of young leaders must tackle are as potentially dangerous and transformative as ever in the history of the world. Nuclear proliferation and the preservation of man hang in the balance. Genocide, hunger, trafficking and poverty pervade the global south, as energy resources consume the interests of the global north. International markets are increasingly complex, and regardless of your preference, interdependence is a reality. A changing climate threatens to move populations, to send organisms into extinction and to expand the frequency of catastrophic weather patterns. The tasks young people face around the world are only compounded by the population growth rate, expected to only reach a peak in another 40 years – in 2050 – at 9 billion people. The world is heating up, terrorism remains a scourge in the West and the Middle East, and there appears no solution or end in sight to its perseverance.

The notion that young people are relevant at all, much less essential to mitigating the crises and potential calamities that these conditions may bring, appears simplistic. But assuming that the role of young people is insignificant or has limitations is not only wrong; it is dangerous for the millions of people currently impacted by youth-driven work.

Over the past 50 years, young people have been central to every major social shift – from the fight against apartheid to the stand against genocide in Darfur – it has been the youth in society that have risen to the occasion. It is no wonder that such a trend has occurred in the beginning of the 21st century. Youth are in an unprecedented position of power and influence. High technology is the tool of toddlers, and the access point to the world of high school and college students. The ability to communicate around the globe at virtually no expense, in any language, through multiple media is transforming the way the world does business, and young people are best equipped to work with these programs and technologies. While information technology threatens to inundate individuals with a saturation of information or media pitches and short videos of limited value, it also provides a venue for young people to access parts of the world that are often either forgotten or deemed hopeless.