Youth in rural areas

It is quite tenable that young women and men in rural areas face particular constraints with regard to both accessibility and availability of services and facilities, and this result in fewer opportunities and less information and employment than in urban areas. This is indeed a pressing issue that needs to be dealt with through a multifaceted approach. In this writing I discuss the two concepts of volunteerism and community leaders as in my notion I think they are some of the major anti-progressive concepts if not facilitated well towards the development of youth in rural areas.

Volunteerism can be defined as when someone offers to do a job willingly without expecting to get paid for it. It is well reflected in the National Youth Policy of 2009-2014 that in some cases, these youth, particularly if they are unskilled, end up being destitute and those who are educated and skilled leave their areas/ communities under-resourced in search of lucrative offers. I would like to believe that volunteerism is one of the best ways to acquire knowledge and skills that may somehow provide better opportunities in the mainstream economy because it imparts one with work experience. Although some voluntary work does not offer financial incentives, which can be difficult to pursue, what remains important is the acquisition of skills and workplace experience. With that been said, the youth in rural areas be it educated or uneducated, still fail to organize themselves by formulating a cohort of change makers that aims to ameliorate the living standard of their disadvantaged communities mostly because they are not paid for what they do or simply because of their pessimistic mindset that triggers loosing of hope and results to barren future prospects. A strong opinion that I am inculcating is that the youth in rural areas should organize themselves to form voluntary projects that will help to uplift their skills base and may generate income to provide incentives to those who participate, by lobbying  funds and other resources, other than sitting down waiting for government to rescue them from their misery of emptiness and need because truthfully we all know that government can only do better by providing basic services which cannot fully suffice for the  betterment of the  living standard of youth in rural areas.

A community leader in its general sense refers to someone responsible to facilitate development in the community prior to the mandate given by the community over a consensus firmness of purpose and should have the following qualities but not limited to leadership and organization skills, ability to communicate, educate and train, action-orientation, understanding of maneuver and flexibility and ability to set aside personal judgment.   I must emphasize that some reasons why less information is disseminated within rural areas is because of the incapacity that is evinced by leaders. Community leaders are incompetent to take pride in distribution of information amongst the youth in rural areas some is due to failure to develop various distribution channels were as many people can be reached and others is just unnecessary greed. Leaders should be held accountable by local government for not doing their duties by demanding reports on all tasks allotted to them. In this way leaders will then see the importance of sharing information with others as way of collectively cultivating equal opportunity for everyone who stand to benefit other than canalizing them to a small elite group because this exacerbates impoverishment and underdevelopment.

In conclusion I acknowledge my first key concept of volunteerism as one of the benevolent ways to intensify skills development and enhance capacity building for youth in under-resourced if not underdeveloped rural areas. Responsibilities and accountability depicted by community leaders in a way of stake holder engagement and liaison in lobbying resources will serve as a springboard that bolsters the self-esteem of the youth in rural areas which will result to youth who adjoin to a shared responsibility in making informed decisions and this will encourage young people both educated and uneducated to take pride in their communities by refraining from going out to urban areas seeking for opportunities that can be cultivated in their respective rural communities.