The wheel yet to roll for the youth

The world celebrated the International Volunteer Day (IVD) on Dec 05 to honor volunteers for their valuable contribution to the communities and encourage decision-makers to support them and recognize their contributions.

It was designated by the United Nations in 1985 and is organized every year under a different theme. This year the theme was ‘Volunteer for an inclusive future’ focused on SDG10 and the pursuit of equality – including inclusion – through volunteerism.

The entire world celebrates the IVD with much fanfare at the public and private level by organizing rallies, parades, fairs, cleanliness drives, blood donation camps, conferences, seminars, symposiums, workshops, exhibitions, and fundraisers.

Being a member state of the United Nations, Pakistan – a country of almost 22 million people – too celebrates the Day, with the NGOs, INGOs, humanitarian organizations, and UN networks taking pains to celebrate it in a more organized, elaborate, and noticeable manner.

The Pakistan Red Crescent Society – the leading humanitarian organization in Pakistan – celebrates the day by organizing different activities like walks, seminars, sports events, poster competitions, fun quizzes, and other activities to highlight the significance of the Day and engage the society in volunteerism.

The PRCS has a vast bank of the best-trained young volunteers – both girls and boys – who are engaged all the year round in different activities like the anti-polio, anti-dengue and tree plantation campaigns, distributing relief goods among the victims of quakes, floods and Line of Control (LOC) firing, arranging medical and first-aid camps, distributing food parcels among the deserving people during the holy month of Ramadan, helping the management in carrying out different important official tasks, and conducting surveys in the disaster-hit areas to name but few.

Volunteers on wheels [VOWs] is another low-cost initiative taken by the PRCS in collaboration with the Red Cross Society of China to enhance its community outreach for provision of first aid services, hygiene promotion, road safety, climate change and cleanliness drive. Under this initiative, 800 bicycles have been donated by the Red Cross Society of China and all of them would be distributed among the volunteers countrywide.

The hard work and industry of volunteers never go unrewarded at the PRCS and many have been taken on the official pay-roll against attractive salary packages due to their handsome contribution in different disciplines.

Volunteers are the PRCS face and strength and a trailblazer for the society. The PRCS has a force of around 1.5 million volunteers countrywide and efforts are being made to increase this number to five million.

Pakistan – comparatively the younger country in the region – is blessed in the sense that 64 percent of its population comprises youths, who are younger than 30, while 29 percent fall in the age brackets of 15 and 29. Another encouraging factor is that this number will continue to grow until at least 2050.

Our political leadership too prides on this huge youth force and misses no opportunity to mention it proudly at home and abroad, but unfortunately over the years no serious effort has been made to engage this force in nation building.

Every year, thousands of our youths get out of universities clinching top positions but they end up joining the club of their already jobless but creative, innovative, and dynamic peers due to continuous ban on government jobs and limited opportunities of growth at the private level.

Owing to years of ban on government jobs, we see our youths doing odd jobs like working at the shops, departmental stores, and call centers, delivering pizzas and mails, and tanking up vehicles at the gas stations to earn bread for them and their families. At the end of month, what they get in return for their hard work is a small salary that is too small to keep wolf from the door.

Small salaries, no surety of continuation of job and outstretching expenses have forced a sizable number of our youths to switch over to unlawful activities like the credit card frauds, bank heists, cell phone snatching and robberies to name but few.

Those who do not find work try to get to the European countries through illegal ways in which they even get killed by the border forces.

The indulgence of our youths in crimes is disturbing peace in the society, posing a serious challenge to our overly stretched law enforcing institutions.

The common plea that our political leadership has long been taking to justify ban on government jobs is that the economy is in bad shape –though while pressing flesh during the election campaigns all our political parties promise jobs to the youth to lure them into voting for them.

To me, bad economy is not to be blamed but making wrong decisions and setting wrong priorities at the governance level, which are hugely contributing towards changing this fast increasing youth bulge into a time bomb. This huge bulge could transform into a huge demographic dividend by setting the right priorities and making the right decisions.

Another dilemma is that our governments treat this vast reserve of educated and qualified youths as an industry and expect them to opt for green pastures abroad and send foreign exchange to the country rather than benefitting from their talent and engaging them for different tasks to help the country jump to the ranks of developed nations.

If Pakistan has to rub shoulders with the developed countries and rise as an economically strong and prosperous country, then our political leadership should stop playing to the gallery and seriously think about benefitting from its innovative and talented but neglected youths by creating enough space to absorb them.

Breaking from this hardened practice of the past regimes, the Government of Pakistan has risen to the occasion by launching different programs for the welfare of the youth and the common man. The Kamyab Jawan Program is one of the initiatives to empower the youth.

Though the government has dubbed it the first step towards fulfilling its promise of youth's prosperity, it is yet to be seen how transparently and merit-based the program is executed and what benefits the targeted beneficiaries on the ground reap.

– The writer is Secretary General Pakistan Red Crescent Society