“In this way our youths are able to express themselves and participate in various activities such as in arts, music, public speaking, sports or other activities which demand mental and physical endurance.”
KUCHING: Our younger generations are the key stakeholders and partners in our development agenda. Assistant Minister of Youth and Sports, Datuk Snowdan Lawan said the young people are important to us as we move forward.
“Youths are energy and our dynamics. Some people say our youths today are leaders of tomorrow, But I say our youth today can also be leaders of today, not necessarily tommorrow,” he said when officiating at the launching of Kuching Youth Day Out (KYDO 2018) at Kuching Waterfront Hotel here yesterday.
KYDO 2018 organised by Angkatan Zaman Manzang AZAM) in collaboration with HAUS and Champions was attended by 85 participants.
Snowdan said although the event was designed for Kuching and for urban youths, it could also serve as an example or model for other urban centres in the state, as well as for rural youths in all other divisions in Sarawak.
“I truly believe Kuching, which is the state capital, is in the position to inspire other communities in the state by sharing Kuching youths’ experience, aspirations and achievements in turning young people to be productive socio-economic resources for Sarawak.
“Events such as this, which take into consideration very current trends, opportunities and challenges, shall make an ideal platform to nurture future leades; leaders who are not only knowledgeable , but also innovative, dare to take risks, embracing high integrity attitude, inclusiveness and visionary,” he stressed.
He said the International Youth Day was celebrated in August earlier this year, where it’s theme for 2018 was ‘Safe Spaces for Youth’ ties in very well with the purpose of AZAM’s KYDO this week. This gives youths the space to engage in constructive dialogues about current, social, and economics trends.
“In this way our youths are able to express themselves and participate in various activities such as in arts, music, public speaking, sports or other activities which demand mental and physical endurance,” the assistant minister emphasised.
Snowdan said the Ngopi Ngeteh session’s purpose was to spark brainstorming and discussions among the youth groups including exploring the best way to implement digital initiatives in various economic and socio-economic sectors within the local communities, adding the youths are expected to be front-runners in this domain.
“The youths have the opportunity to support development in many anchor sectors in Sarawak’s Digital Economy Strategy, which include but are not limited to E-Commerce, Social, Tourism, and even Agriculture. And all these sectors can generate big potentials for big businesses,” he said.
The objectives of the programmes were to bring together Kuching youths from diverse backgrounds and interests to converse, perform and play together as part of a healthy lifestyle and social interaction; to get local youths to talk about current social and economic trends with a view to encourage the younger generations to contribute ideas and recommendations on moving forwards; and to help provide a stronger unified front for the youths to be heard, to be engaged and included in the state’s development process.
