Federal Minister of Youth Affairs, Shahid Hussain Bhutto has announced that a radio station for the youth of Pakistan is going to be launched, which would be the first such station in the history of Pakistan. He stated this while addressing three-day conference "Risks and Dividends of the Youth Bulge in Pakistan", held on Tuesday.
The conference was organised by BARGAD and UNFPA in collaboration with the youth ministry, and was addressed by Joint Secretary Youth Affairs, Sohaila Mushtaq and representatives of UNFPA. Speaking on the occasion, Shahid Bhutto said this year, government is planning to establish 100 youth activity centres in the rural areas of Pakistan, while a MoU with UNFPA has been signed in this regard. He said such activity centres, in the second phase, would also be established at the tehsil and union council level.
At these centres, students will be given the opportunity to learn computer and language courses will also be offered to them. The objective to set up such activity centres is to minimise gap between rural and urban youth. The minister announced that after Eid, national youth talent awards would be given to the shining youths, adding that the ceremony was postponed due to unprecedented floods in the country.
He further said 36000 young people have benefited from national internship programme and this year, 46000 youth will be benefited from it. He said that youth programmes are being launched in which policies are being formed according to the public opinion, as policies advised by the public are more effective than governmental opinion.
He observed that conditions at governmental schools were improper, where teachers are not fully available. On the contrary, youth should be taught by keeping in mind their circumstances and abilities in order to bring a change. BARGAD's Executive director Sabiha Shaheen told the conference that United Nations has declared period, lasting from 12th august 2010 to 11 August 2011, as the youth year. She informed that to celebrate this year, they are establishing national youth advocacy forum-Pakistan.
Later, position holders of youth voices competition "Innovative Ideas On Youth in Pakistan" Affifa Shamim, Wajahat Nair and Ishaq Ahmed were given certificates and prizes. At the conference, Sadia Atta, Iqbal Haider Butt, Sarmad Raza Naik and Ali Mardan expressed views about the rights and responsibilities of youths. 80 students from 35 varsities, along-with approximately 200 members from the civil society and NGOs, participated and appreciated the work presented by BARGAD.
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