Talented in their own way

Yes! we are ready :

Nipuni WIMALAPALA

“Blooming flowers are fresh and pure; highly sensitive and vulnerable to destruction. Becoming youngsters are alike blooming flowers which are ready to pop out in fresh air. They are extremely sensitive and exceedingly reactive who undergo critical biological changes in the formative period of their life.

Two young lovers at the Wellawatte beach

A teenage couple expressing their thoughts

Two youngsters leisurely walking at the Galle Face Green

A teenage couple

Youngsters, being the most prominent part of the population of a country, are spending the most critical age of their lives. The age group is between 14 to 24. So called young age is extremely sensitive, critical in which they undergo a lot of biological, mental, social, cultural and attitudinal changes which are considered to be the main factors via what they form their own personality as independent individuals,” stated the Youth Affairs and Skills Development Minister, Dullas Alahapperuma in an interview with Daily News.

According to the minister, youth population is the main asset of a country. In 2006, 26.5 percent of Sri Lankan population was youth. It is a great achievement and is called a bonus to a country to accelerate its development. This will remain till 2030 and during this period, the governments whoever in power should try their best to increase the development process of the country using youth power.

Another significant factor is most of the countries achieved development having a considerable youth population backed by a steady political stability. After overcoming the war, Sri Lanka has come to a point where it has more than 25 percent of youth population and firm political steadiness. Both factors would contribute much to bring country to a golden era of development.

“Being the Youth Affairs Minister, I should say that youth issues have to be tackled in a moderate approach instead of being conventional. In a highly technical and transformative society, we should look in to youth issues in a modern angle. The whole society is being changed continuously due to new technical inventions. Today’s youth are not restricted to books and other conventional education methods.

They freely study in a cyberspace. Nobody can stop the ongoing changes rather than adapting to what is good for the youth. So current youth is blessed with a lot of new things and as being adults and forerunners we should clearly understand the fact that their attitudes, opinions, behavioural patterns could be totally different from our time”, Minister stated.

The minister, stressing on youths’ exposure to new technology, stated that in today’s context, youngsters are really interested in new technology and they do experience its advantages as well as disadvantages. Most of them use mobile phones; they do possess e-mail accounts, facebook profiles, tweeter profiles, skype accounts which are highly supported and easily accessible in various means in networking. They can get to know thousands of friends and have contacts with them through these modern ways of communication.

Currently there is a new attitude among people that today’s youth are not well behaved and do not respect our cultural values. They are blamed for falling in love in their early young age. But youth are not to be blamed alone; it is basically the fault of the system. Everything is being changed, so why do we expect highly sensitive and instantly reactive youngsters to be conventional?

“I would analyse the issue in two ways, on one hand, being the Youth Affairs Minister of the country who possesses a huge responsibility and also as a loving father of two young sons.I am always very open minded, practical and positive. Being one of the main issues, romantic love affairs must be considered a part of adolescent age which is very biological. They are natural adolescent feelings. It is not fair to consider it as a social taboo. Letting males and females work, study, play, involve in different aesthetic activities together may help them consider each other as friends. Being attracted to the opposite gender is something very natural and is not a fault of them” he further stated.

In Sri Lanka, young love is sometimes considered a huge fault of teenagers. Just being in love, sitting next to each other holding hands is not a big fault since they are the outcomes of natural adolescent feelings. But if teenagers go beyond that to a sexual relationship due to any reason, it should be considered something really dangerous.

Today the situation has become worst that most of the teen couples are rather interested in having physical pleasure instead of experience love in a decent way. Beaches, parks, gardens, film halls have become some of the favourite places of teen couples. In Sri lanka, the most popular places are Galle Face, Mt. Lavinia beach, Wellawatta beach, Viharamahadevi Park etc. Everyday we can see a large number of couples visiting these places and most of them are teens that miss their tuition classes and set off to enjoy with their lovers. This has become a common scene.

Commenting on the fact, minister sated that, undoubtedly only a few teenagers do it. Majority is good. They are poor middle class young people. When it comes to the high class rich young people, they directly go to night clubs and other modern places and nobody talks about them. Laws cannot help stop this. But the system, attitudes and other social factors are there to be altered to suit 21 century socio-environment.

“The main issue is there is no proper place for youth to go and share their thoughts and feelings. So we decided to facilitate them by establishing ‘Youth Parks’ around the country. The first one is to be established in Matara very soon and another five youth parks in areas like, Kandy, Colombo, Gampaha etc. It is important to understand that these are not lover’s parks but youth parks.

The age group is from 17 up to 29. A youth park will be consisted of a library and a mini theatre to uplift the youth literature and the youth cinema which are being washed away from the country. Facilities for youngsters to be involved in entertaining activities such as music, dancing and drama are also provided. This would be a really good place for them to enjoy their youth and also to share a good time with lovers in a proper manner,” Minister further stated.

Minister Alahapperuma further explained the suggestions and new steps to be taken by the ministry to facilitate youth to become strong and stable individuals. Since only three percent of student population enters university, another 16 percent go for technical education and another two percent go abroad for higher education. It reflects that only 21 percent of student population is engaged in a constant workout. Most of the others are left without any expectation.

“We want to change this by directing 40 percent of student population to vocational training courses which match 21 century having a practical approach. This is to be considered an index. Apart from it, we hope to introduce technology stream for Advanced Level students and more practical technical subjects to students who are following their secondary education.

Youth can achieve better targets of their lives through vocational training courses. Every student is not a genius in studies but every student has his own talents. Our effort is to buff their unique talents to make them stable persons”, Minister stressed.