Importance of social leadership among youth stressed

Islamabad : Youth being the most vital asset of the nation, with Pakistan having more than 60 per cent of its population under 30 years of age – potentially an important demographic dividend – needs to be engaged positively and prepared to take up the challenges of the upcoming era, empathetically and systematically.

The views were expressed by speakers at a ceremony organised by Youth Impact, a not-for-profit social development organisation, at a local hotel, to showcase and acknowledge 75 peacebuilding projects undertaken by youth leaders it trained from across Pakistan this year.

The programme was addressed, among other notables, by Khalid Rahman, chairman, the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Saad Tariq Siddiqui, chairman, of Alpine Club of Pakistan, Tauseeq Haider, famous TV Anchor, Abdul Samad Khan, CEO, of Youth Impact, and Mathew Singer, director, public affairs section, US embassy. To prepare Pakistan’s youth to volunteer for critical social leadership and peacebuilding roles, Youth Impact launched a campaign through ‘Camp Himalayas’, a programme to train more than 400 young social leaders, who embarked on a journey of community service by executing multiple tasks of social development, inclusivity and nation-building in their local districts. In total, nine wilderness-based outdoor leadership camps were conducted in Kaghan valley and Margalla hills following which these youth volunteers delivered a total of 372 peacebuilding seminars and 75 peacebuilding projects in their own communities, with a total impact count of 23,488 community members engaged.

These projects were largely delivered in the remote areas of Balochistan, South Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Gilgit-Baltistan, as well as in lower-income localities of Karachi. Speakers at the ceremony lauded their efforts of giving back to society and underscored the importance of voluntarism among our youth through multiple community welfare initiatives. They lauded the efforts of the young individuals, who chose to bring about social change and development by projecting the values of unity, respect, diversity and tolerance.