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Opinions of Wednesday, 24 August 2016

Columnist: Charles Sam

The rise of a new generation : Laying bare the facts that confront us

Charles Sam, CEO of Golden Future Promotions Charles Sam, CEO of Golden Future Promotions

Ghana, like many other nations around the world, is faced with the challenge of responding positively to, and advantageously repositioning itself, with changing demographics.

With an energetic and enthusiastic but holistically ill-prepared youth constituting 60% of the nation's total population, a potential force for big transformational change, and the older less enthusiastic generation fast losing steam for new creations, exponential expansion, and strategic diversification, there is the urgent need for the nation to work in earnest to prepare as well as strategically position within all sectors of the nation, this great asset of ours for rapid national advancement in today's highly competitive and global spirited world.

The hard, cold facts on the ground establish the various categories of the nation's youth as follows :

1. Those who for a couple of reasons, but most especially, social poverty, have not had the benefit of any form of formal education

2. Those who finished primary formal education, but by reasons of social poverty, did not pursue their education any further

3. Those who dropped off on completing Junior High School and possess no meaningful skill sets for market engagement

4. Those who slide out of formal education on completion of Senior High School and hardly have an understanding of what life, productivity, and national engagement, are all about

5. The outcomes of tertiary education who posses no structured thinking that produces ideas, no analytical capabilities to understand the prevailing environment, nor what do in a pragmatic and result-oriented action

There must be an efficiently-structured growth process through which the youth would engage in working progressively to :

1. Meet their basic personal and social needs to ensure their security and that of the nation

2. It should entail the intentional preparation, strategic positioning and effective engagement of the youth in the revolutionary reinvention, and nation building process, in a bid to co-create the future

3. The youth should be cared for, valued, made useful to the nation, and ought to be spiritually grounded. It is crucial to structurally develop the various skills-sets and competences that allow them to function and contribute effectively to nation, sub-regional and continental building. It is a process or journey that must automatically involve all of the people around them, including family and community

A young person will not be able to build essential skills and competences nor be able to feel safe, cared for, or valued, unless their family, community and governments provide them with the support and opportunities they need along the way. Thus, family, community, the corporate world and governments must actively participate in developing the future leadership and human resource base of any nation

We must avert the grave danger of our highly energized youth bonding together in indiscipline, crime, lawlessness, rebellion, narcotic drugs peddling and abuse, and nation wrecking violence that could easily slide into anarchy. These retrogressive actions are fast creeping in amongst our youth in communities nationwide and we must get to the root cause, diffuse this ticking time bomb and salvage this deadly situation. It is a rights issue and a shared responsibility that concerns every member of our society

THE YOUTH WANT WORLD CLASS EDUCATION, START UP BUSINESS COACHING, STRUCTURING, CAPITAL, BUSINESS EXPANSION FINANCE, AN IDEAS BANK, LOCAL AND EXPORT MARKET FACILITATION, BUSINESS SUB-CONTRACTING, BUSINESS MENTORING, AVENUES FOR INTERNSHIP/APPRENTICESHIP, ADEQUATE EXPOSURE, RELEVANT TRAINING, SKILLING AND RE-SKILLING, PRACTICAL TOOLS TO WORK, INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE MINDS, OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPORT PATENTED CONCEPTS AND IDEAS, A DECISION MAKING VOICE IN THE NATION, AND VERY IMPORTANTLY, THE DELIBERATE SPACE CREATED FOR THEM TO EVOLVE IN ALL ASPECTS OF OUR NATIONAL LIFE

As a nation, we are currently grooming an army of unemployed youth into adulthood and that is extremely dangerous for peace and the stability of the country. A PROGRESSIVE DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF OUR YOUTH, A WHOLE GENERATION.
We cannot keep nurturing a generation without any foreseeable prospect of prosperity in the immediate future; not knowing when the next meal is coming from, and still continue to live in the illusion that THE TYPICAL GHANAIAN IS PEACEFUL AND PEACE LOVING, SO NO CAUSE FOR ALARM! IN FACT, THE ALARM BELLS ARE RINGING ALL AROUND US

When we deprive young people the opportunities of prosperity for a long time, and by their actions or inactions, keep widening the obvious gap between the have's and have not's in the society, the reality of lack and the need for want will eventually change their perception of peace and the value to keep and preserve peace ... Consequently, JUSTICE AND SURVIVAL will cloud the mindset and reactionary instincts of the endangered peace when they can take it no more, because they have nothing to lose in the final analysis. This is simply because they are gaining nothing in putting value on peace in the reality of their lives.

The well documented 'perception' of violence in some black communities in the USA for instance did not happen overnight, but a generation was groomed that lived or die on their survival instincts by a discriminatory system neglecting their fundamental needs to have a decent life painting the ugly face of poverty within the black neighbourhoods/communities.
SUFFICE IT TO SAY IN FINALITY, THAT WE ARE INDIRECTLY BREEDING AN ARMY OF YOUTH INTO ADULTHOOD CAPABLE OF TIPPING OVER WHEN WE LEAST EXPECTED AND IN AN ERADICATED OF COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP, THINKING AND ACTION, RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS MUST STEP IN TO CAPTURE THESE NEW GENERATION ENERGIES FOR MORE PROGRESSIVE VENTURES

Ghana is now faced with the challenge of urgently responsing to, and exiting a potentially explosive crises situation to swiftly reinvent and reposition the nation unto a more expansive, transformational and sustainable path with a great future in view, a major game change. This will however require a revolutionary change in thinking and conduct, one that is at total variance with what got us into this mess. It is a change from our myopic nation-weakening partisan political thinking to a bigger and broader national and global collective thinking

All of us as citizens of a society premised on the trinity of JUSTICE, PEACE, AND OPPORTUNITY under a great and powerful God, should in the best interest of all, and not for some of our people, or particular groups.
This is the New Ghana success formation and we must begin closing our ranks to constitute ourselves into action groups nationwide

It is time to fight to create our desired future. We must take destiny into our hands, stop dissipating productive nation building energy on fighting the old. This crucial energy must be invested in the big shift with our youthful energies to create the new. As we progressively move away from the old and create the new, the old and failed national life will fade away and be buried

God bless the rise of the New Ghana Nation

Charles Sam

Golden Future Promotions

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