"Guard your light and protect it. Move it forward into the world and be fully confident that if we connect light to light to light, and join the lights together of the one billion young people in our world today, we will be enough to set our whole planet a glow."
-Hafsat Abiola
Youth are mighty force to reckon with. They can move the mountains and transform world. They have physical power, courage, enthusiasm and sense of adventure to explore the unknown.
They are not bogged down with chains of traditions and preconceptions. They can explore the untrodden path and create new society. Swami Vivekananda had aptly commented – “Give me a thousand youth with body of steel and courage of a lion I shall transform a nation”.
They can drive the world in whatever direction they wish to drive. They are the only force that can turn the peak of problems into pieces and pave the way for future.
Our mother earth is now going through tough time in the history. The food insecurity and environmental degradation are in a way to engulf our mother earth. Youth is the dynamic force that possess enormous potential to solve all these problems.
I believe that the power to rescue the Mother Earth lies within the hands of the youth. The quest of saving the mother earth has been irresponsibly ignored by most of the people throughout the beginning of the industrial revolution. The populace has been blinded by the dominance of useful and yet destructive technology. The solution to our rapidly developing environmental crisis and food security is quite simple-Youth supremacy.
Nowadays our land vicinity is persistently damaged in different tactics. Haphazard disposal of urban and industrial waste, exploitation of minerals, improper use of soil by inadequate agricultural practices, indiscriminate use of pesticides and organic fertilizers in the name of commercial farming, irrational use of available natural resources and rapidly growing population are posing serious threat to our Mother Earth and to our food system.
So what could be the role of youth like me?
Youth like me has great role to play to save our Mother earth and to solve the food insecurity problem. For example I am the student of agriculture and I have put my efforts on reduction of poverty and conservation of environment in my locality. Just a few days ago, I conducted an awareness program in my village about the climate change and its impact on farming system. Most of the farmers in my village are illiterate so to overcome the linguistic problem between them and me, I used the different methods like posters, pictures and videos presentation.
The method I used became pretty successful to make them aware about the impacts of climate change and strategies to minimize its effects in their farming system. Similarly, I made them aware about the negative aspects of using pesticides and insecticides in the name of increasing yield of crops. And, gave them idea about organic farming which increases the yield of crops creating harmony with the environment. This is what I did to bring positive change in my society.
Sometime, I ponder how beautiful the world would be if one billion youth just come out from their positions and devoted themselves in bringing positive changes in their own locality.The youth today possess different kinds of skills and talents. They are good in different fields whether in stage performance or academics or volunteering or making innovations or conducting different campaigns or public speaking. They should use these gifts as a means to solve the global problems .A youth who is good at public speaking can play a role in creating awareness among people about environmental degradation and food insecurity. Similarly, a young person who is good at academics and making innovations may help in solving these global issues through their innovations and researches. For example, Hydroponics culture could be the best way to solve the food insecurity and reducing the environmental degradation. They take up to 50% less land to grow the same amount of crops leaving more land for other purposes such as wildlife reserves and also saving trees which would otherwise be cleared for agricultural practices. It also helps in the conservation of water and significantly reduces the use of fertilizers. Likewise hydroponics culture through plastic bottles helps in sustainable management of wastes. Similar to hydroponics culture youth could develop different technology which aids in reduction of poverty and conservation of Mother Earth.
Likewise, youth who are good at conducting campaign may conduct different campaigns to save mother earth, to eliminate disparity among people and to reduce hunger in the world. The root cause of all these global problem is war. War destroy populations and habitat, assault the environment and greatly contribute to climate chaos. And, it is the youth who has mighty power to stop the world from this anthropogenic devastation and drive the world ahead in a land of peace. Yes, it is youth who should move forward to create economic system that supports working people and the poor by reorienting economy to supporting needs over the profits of tiny minority of people. So that the problem of poverty and hunger can be reduced to larger extent.
History is replete with examples of heroic deeds of youth and their contribution in solving the global problems. Youth vision for conserving the Mother World is as bold and as effective as the sun rays in the morning which is capable of eliminating entire darkness of world after a long period. Youth should realize that “dash for cash” economic solutions hinder progress towards a better, more sustainable world and march forward with broader sense of vision so as to eliminate global problems and save the mother earth.
Eyeing to multiple problems afflicting the global society today, we are forced to think a common solution which can come to our aid. As we saw, most of these issues are related to selfish ignorant and materialist outlook of people. Unless we bring a revolution in the thoughts of people, we can’t dream bringing an end to these multi-thronged challenges. It is the high time to take initiative and knock down peaks of poverty and leap ahead to reduce environment degradation. Otherwise as said by the slogan “when the last tree has been cut down, the last river poisoned, the last fish caught, only then will we realize, we can’t eat money”, we would lament in the future.