The Role Of Youth In Social Change And Social Innovation

“There’s a fountain of the youth. It is our mind, our talents, the creativity we bring to our life and the lives of people we love. When we learn to tap this source, we will truly have defeated age” – Sophia Loren.

WHO ARE THE YOUTHS?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “Youth is the period of life between the Childhood and Adult age”. It is also “the qualities of energy, freshness, immaturity, e.t.c associated with being young”.

Youth can also be defined as one of the greatest assets a nation or country can be proud of which are constantly regarded as the future leaders, young men and women who use their potential values, talents, vital resources worth of investment by a country to foster the development of a nation and act as a centre of reconstruction.

Youth has been termed the notable change agent and drivers of societal transformation especially in diverse developing countries and must be able to rise and develop their mindset through their various talents or uniqueness.

In Nigeria as at 2012,using the National Population Commission (NpopC) projections, Nigeria was said to have a population of 167Millions of which half or 50% of these were said to be youth in the age category of 15-34 years. Nigeria as a country is said to be the country that has the largest youth population in the framework of this definition.

To keen further, I would love to explain some terminologies for better understanding of the concept of youth and positive development:

• Social change
• Moral system of belief
• Potential Values
• Social innovation

Social change:

Social change may be defined as the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution I.e the philosophical idea that a society moves forward by evolutionary means(WIKIPEDIA).

As regards to the two words coined together ‘social ‘change’, societal change or social change simply means the process by which a country changes or develops economically, culturally, religiously, scientifically or technologically.

The social changes in Nigeria is traceable since we became independent back in 1960 till this present day. Some of these changes includes:

• Shift from regions to state (that is today 36 state)
• Shift from Agriculture to Oil production
• Transition towards a Democratic government
• Education
• National identity
• Utilization of the various platforms and groups
• Existence and development in the country’s cultural heritage
• Forging a strong alliance with what is left of the judiciary
• Executive influence and coercion over process of governance

Moral System of belief:

This can be defined as the set of beliefs or rules that governs an individual action from what is right and wrong. Sometimes these rules are backed up by religious belief whereas our own believe can go a long way in achieving our set goals.

A form of shibboleth exist in this country whereby many youth still believe that those that are successful are born rich or uses charms for their development which is ideally not. These believes and individual mindset make the youth of nowadays engage in one fraudulent activity or the other.

Regardless of the prevailing circumstances, we should strive and make something work out of nothing.

Potential Values:

The potential values is an individual overall uniqueness or talents which makes him different from others. It is a form of self worth that occurs through the individual abilities and capabilities.

Social innovation:

Social innovation can be defined as the creation of new ideas through individual experiences, knowledge and abilities for positive impact.

A social innovation is also regarded as a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just present solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals (Stanford Business centre for innovation).

As a youth, we all have one innovative sense and therefore bringing this sense together in a creative way resolves existing social, cultural, economic, and environmental challenges.

Role of youth in Social Change and Social Innovation

Politics:

I was told and I believed in the past that all these government establishments traversed university campuses in search of prospective employees, even before they graduate. Today in Nigeria, the story is vice versa; in fact even those who have reached the highest academic echelon find it difficult to secure a good job and at times homeless.

In spite the fact that politics is the terrain of participation where most influential decisions are made, youth should play a major role in the political participation through voting their right choice of candidate that will represent them in government. There is lack of youth-friendly structures and method of work. Imagine in a country where the youth are being used as political thuggery and mostly engage in politics because of money.

Let’s come together as one and make the nation understand that we nearly cover the total population.

Locating individual area of strength for betterments

This is categorized as one of the basic role of youth in social innovation.

Having understand the area of strength, the next thing is to induce ourselves to start something creative with our own ideas and uniqueness.

Education:

Education is not an excuse for an individual not to be successful or not to contribute to the development of the nation. Though, without adequate education there would be limited vacancies in the job market whereby youth faces difficult transition to adulthood and independence as they are likely to experience unemployment, poverty and social exclusion.

In reference to what Mr Kazeem Noibi said in the youth symposium that we should move from our comfort zone and develop our potential values (talents) towards the development of the nation.

Define yourself and be creative enough to be self employed instead of seeking unnecessary job opportunities. Wizkid, Olamide, Brymo, Falz, e.t.c are examples of Nigerian youth who move away from their comfort zone to be productive. Some of them might have been a drop out in their early stage in life but on the long run they went back to school in other not for their achievement to be limited.

Agriculture:

“If all the youth in Nigeria want to go into farming, there’s enough land to do so” – Ogunlolu Yemi.

Nigeria is a country that is blessed with crude oil and come to think of it what is the benefit of these crude oil to youth? Though it is being used as a source of generating income/revenue to the government. However, if the youth can play a major role in agricultural produce, the rate of poverty in the country will reduce. In a situation where there is no enough expertise in agricultural sector there would be:

• Low quality of farm produce
• High cost of farm produce (inflation)

Engagement of youth in accountability mechanism

This country needs more qualified Engineers, Fashion Designers, Economists, Journalists, Doctors, Teachers, e.t.c. to lead us to our developmental aspiration. However to help us as youth to where we want and enable us to become effective contributors to nation building, all hands must be on deck to achieve this objectives as we all need more trainings, motivations and support from our parent.

It is true that today’s youth are facing many challenges relate to unemployment, drug abuse, human trafficking, tribalism piracy but there also exits opportunities to gradually overcome some of these challenges. Having said all that, it is also important for we the youth to believe in ourselves so as to be accountable both individually and collectively to nation building.

“The destiny of the nation is in the shoulder of the youth, let us strive and make something work out of nothing”