Culled from the Point
YOUTH FORUM
Madi Jobarteh on Information, Education and Communication IEC
Presenting a paper on Information, Education and Communication at the GAM
YAG Youth Bantaba recently, Madi Jobarteh said the basis for meaningful
development and progressive change in any society is enlightenment. “Only an
enlightened people can take right decisions and actions. An enlightened
society understands itself, its environment and conditions and therefore
capable enough to find solutions to its concerns and problems. It is only an
enlightened people who can organise themselves to build a dignified,
prosperous and free society.
An enlightened society is an empowered society, which can transform its
condition from one of wretchedness to prosperity,” Jobarteh hammered.
According to him the essence of IEC is to provide information and education
in order to promote issues, practices and materials or to discourage them in
a community. “In fact when we look at our society we see that things that
have been so much a focus of IEC are those that have not only wide support
and favour contrary to our message but also strongly defended,” he said.
However, he noted that a lot of things impinge on IEC so strongly that they
roll back their efforts and render them utterly ineffective; while still in
some cases it is counter productive.
He named culture, religion, poverty, urbanisation, tourism, and popular
music information technology among others as examples. Madi added that IEC
should also aim to break conservatism and build a society of positive and
progressive ideas and attitudes. “We have a lot of positive values in our
culture, which needs to be exploited for the benefit of our youths,” he
stated. “Our youth,” he noted, “are in a crises of culture while we seem to
be moving from the old society, vestiges of which still dominate our minds
and way of life. There is also a movement towards modernity.
The problem, it seems, is how to synchronise the traditional setting with
the modern one, which is still at a very low level. Nonetheless, he cited
the fact that many youths have access to information, educated or travelled,
this is an achievement against conservatism. According to him it should be
properly utilised so that we do away with the negative effects and take
charge of the advantages. “What this accords young people is that they have
more flexible views and approaches to issues Conakry to the older
generation, which is largely rigid and mechanic especially about things
cultural.”
“This is why at GFPA we strongly contend that we should invest in the young,
he quipped. While concluding, Mr. Jobarteh echoed that our IEC should aim to
build a new youth. He described a new youth as one who is informed about his
or her sexual and reproductive health and rights. “The new youth is a
selfless, informed and dedicated person whose strength lies in working with
all youths and whose greatest achievement is staying healthy in body and
mind and fulfilling his or her obligation to his or her fellow youths and
nation,” he observed.
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