Youth today have proven to be an indispensable asset. They have chosen to be at the helm of so many aspects for development. From championing gender equality, human rights, climate change among others, their efforts have proven that when young people are empowered, development results advance. Among issues discussed at the third plenary of the Commonwealth Youth Forum on June 20, ‘Youth Championing Innovation for Transformation and Development’ was key, where different young activists underscored the need for innovation, especially among youth, for development. Rianna Paterson, a multi-award winning global TEDx speaker, change maker and founder of the Dominica Dementia Foundation said that everyone, including youth, have a duty to make this world liveable for all. She tasked youth to always consider the bigger picture when building projects, “they should build them for all people, for young people, and for future generations.” With her initiative, Paterson decided to champion innovation for development by creating a community of dementia advocates to channel and change the narrative for good, by providing enough information on what dementia is and what support to give to a person with it, after her grandfather passed away from the disease. “My grandfather passed away from dementia when I was sixteen, he was my friend in all and it was quite hard to see him deteriorate quickly. When he started losing memory, I decided to turn to google on how to take care of a person with dementia. I started bringing pictures to make him remember and eventually, he did, most of the time people with dementia are characterised with suffering, vulnerability, and fragility. We need to change the narrative.” Sharonice Busch, a pan-African youth union vice president and National Youth Council of Namibia, emphasised the power of consistency and why youth should work together to respond to the challenges that they face. With her life as a young girl raised by a single mother and growing up in an underprivileged home, Busch decided to use her story to advocate for issues that youth face like unemployment, reintegration of teen mothers back to school, and changing the narrative around public schools. “We are ordinary youth doing extraordinary things. But we need to be coordinated and better organised as young people. To governments, the best investment you can make is in the youth,” she said. Shomy Chowdhury, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) activist from Bangladesh, urged youth to understand that there are so many different ways to address challenges especially by leveraging technology and innovation; however reflections on challenges happening in communities can be a source for innovation. She shared that her passion to advocate for water sanitation and hygiene came from losing her mother to poor hygiene. “When I lost my mother to diarrhoea, I decided to take action. I knew I had to do something not only for me, but for the entire community. I knew I had the knowledge to address this, but what about the ones in the communities that didn’t have access to education and awareness,” she said. Although she couldn’t save her mother, Chowdhury vowed to save other people by creating a platform that would spread awareness and avail necessary tools to deal with sanitation. She reminded the youth to look out for potential partners and collaborations for them to be efficient in the way they execute their plans and innovations.
