Youths want to be agents of change, not onlookers

South African anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela's saying "The youths of today are the leaders of tomorrow" remains true in every sense even today. When they aspire to be leaders – be it in politics, economy or society -- or become professionals, they need to learn the skills relevant to their field. 

In the era of artificial intelligence, skills-set requirements are also changing. Teamwork, negotiation, critical thinking and creativity are some of the abilities which will be essential in the coming days.

"These are the skills you will learn when you become UN volunteers," said Shalina Miah, UN Volunteers (UNV) regional manager for Asia-Pacific, during her recent visit to Bangladesh to inspire the country's youths to engage in volunteering.

During her visit, she signed a memorandum of understanding with the Economic Relations Division (ERD), with the latter committing to fully fund ten Bangladeshi civil servants to work as UN volunteers in Asia-Pacific and Europe as experts on various areas of development.

This is the first such deal between UNV and Bangladesh, which will increase the representation of the country in the UN system.

"It's a landmark deal," Shalina, a Bangladesh-origin Belgian citizen, said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Star at UNV Bangladesh office in the capital on February 17. She lauded how the country is now playing important roles in the international development discourse.

The civil servants, who will gather international experience while working as volunteers, will add value to the services they provide to the people at home, she said.

UNV engages a lot of youths as volunteers, and Bangladeshi youths should be engaged more in the UNV programme, she said.

"We have database of more than 3,00,000 volunteers worldwide. Of them, only 337 Bangladeshis are registered in the database. Given the level of population in Bangladesh, the number should be more," Shalina said.

"We want more volunteerism. This is one way of accelerating Sustainable Development Goals. When we reach 2020, there will be only ten years left for achieving the SDGs" she added. "You can achieve the SDGs with more volunteers who can reach out to the marginalised levels."

Noting that Bangladesh is at the stage of demographic dividend, having more than 40 percent youths in its population, she said through volunteering they can learn technical skills and soft skills like teamwork, negotiation and creativity.

"For youths, this is a very good pathway to learn these skills and then use [them] in different contexts – government, private sector or international development. This helps them to be selfless and contribute to the society," Shalina said.

She said youths in Bangladesh are very engaged, active, passionate and eager to make the world a better place.

"Wherever I go, I have the best time seeing the spirit of the youths. The youths today are active. They want to be agents of change, not onlookers. We want to bring that spirit to the UN level."