I am sitting in
a conference on Youth and Union which is held now (October 27-28, 2012) in
Battambog province. There are about 100 youth attending in this conference. My
session will be in about an hour talking about general social issues in
Cambodia. Sitting in the corner of the conference room listening to a panel of
speakers who are talking now about youth’s issues, reminded me of 10 years ago
when I am sitting as one of the participant in such an event.
Sitting opposite
to me now are two young man and woman who are listening very carefully on what
the speakers are talking about and writing down important points in to their
notebooks. On the panel tables are four speakers. Those included three men (age
more than 30 years old) and one female who looks like around 20 years old.
The way the
conference room is set up is very typical youth capacity building event which I
have attended since the last 10 years. There is nothing bad about this; yet, it
is very old fashion type which might not be so effective anymore. One of the
reasons I think so is the facts that older people are talking about youth
issues in quite a formal way which, to me, is not youth friendly. The female
speaker whom I just talked about earlier is a good example. She is in her early
20 and she is just a volunteer in one of the youth organization. Her speech
wasn’t very well delivered as public speaking isn’t her ability yet but I think
she is better related to youth participants who are facing the same challenges
in employment. I enjoyed her speech much more than the other three.
I am not saying
that older generation is taking our seats but youth are not capable enough to
sit there as speaker. Lack of confidence, the fear of public speaking and the
lack of experiences are the reason behind this lack representation of youth.
I end here and
you can make your own conclusion! Thanks.
