By Nasuha Badrul Huzaini
EVERY year, the world celebrates International Youth Day on August 12 with the purpose of creating an opportunity for governments and others to draw attention to youth issues.
This year, the theme chosen for the occasion is ‘Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health’. Even though much of the world has been crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic, young people from all corners of the globe will still try to stand up and be heard.
Under the leadership of state executive councillor for youth and sports Mohd Khairuddin Othman, the Selangor government has planned two main programmes to mark the day.
In an interview with Selangor Journal recently, Mohd Khairuddin said the two programmes are Selangor Youth Skills (SYS) and Selangor Volunteer (Serve).
“For SYS, the programme will be launched virtually on August 20 with an objective to develop useful skills among the younger generation in the state.
“Participation is open to youths from all academic levels including traditional institutions of higher learning, technical and vocational schools and also government schools.
“The participants will be competing in 10 different skill categories which we have set, such as animation creation; hackathon; fashion technology; furniture making; terrarium design; architecture modelling; graphic technology; short film and video making; social media marketing and song composition.
“As for the Serve programme, it will also be launched virtually on August 21. The programme is in line with the state government’s initiative to support volunteerism in Selangor. “The main objective of this platform is to help the community and the state government during crisis and emergency situations. We expect to recruit 3,000 volunteers from 56 constituencies by year-end.
Money to be made
Apart from the two programmes, Mohd Khairuddin said the state government through his portfolio has allocated various incentives for young people.
“For this year alone, we have channelled RM30,000 in financial aid to 58 volunteers under Malaysia Vaccine Support Volunteers (MyVac) who contracted Covid-19.
We also handed over a one-off financial assistance amounting to RM127,000 to Selangor Youth Moves (PeBS).
“Furthermore, we’ve allocated a total prize of RM400,000 to the Selangor Xtiv Virtual programme and we hope it can be of help to ease the winners’ financial burdens,” said Khairuddin.
Games and benefits
Khairuddin, who is also the Paya Jaras state representative, was eager to talk about the two ongoing programmes tailored for the youth that have been receiving an overwhelming response — the Selangor Xtiv e-Sports (SXE) and Roda Darul Ehsan (RiDE).
“SXE is the main virtual programme under the larger Selangor Xtiv Virtual Games that was initiated for the first time last year.
“At the beginning, the programme was organised to encourage active participation during the movement control order (MCO) period, but due to the massive response, we decided to run the event again this year.
“The e-sport programme has eight phases commencing from March until the end of this year.
There are five major games lined up for the competition such as PuBG Mobile; Mobile Legends: Bang Bang; Call of Duty Mobile; FIFA Pro Club 2021 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2021.
“As of July 7, the programme has recorded over 140,470 participants,” he said.
Meanwhile, for RiDE, Khairuddin said the initiative allows eligible recipients to enjoy a few benefits such as a RM500 subsidy for all p-hailing riders (transportation of goods) and RM70 worth of protection from Social Security Organisation (Socso).
“Starting from Aug 1, 2020, the youth in Selangor from age 17 to 30 can apply for the initiative via the Selangor Sports Council’s official website. So far, we have received a total of 6,389 registrations,” he said.
Opportunities to grow
All young people have the potential to lead a nation, and therefore their roles and opinions need to be heard and highlighted. To this, Mohd Khairuddin said the state government has rebranded a few initiatives for the local youths.
“Recently, we amended an initiative previously known as Local Youths Moves (PeBT). It is now known as PeBS. Prior to this, PeBT was an entity under the purview of the local authorities. After the rebranding exercise, PeBS is now under the jurisdiction of the Selangor Sports Council,” he said.
All youth programmes in the constituency will be guided by 10 core areas as set out by PeBs. They are the areas of education and training; social welfare and volunteerism; the arts and culture; the youth and their pursuits; religion and spirituality; leadership and organisation; health and wellbeing; internationalisation; entrepreneurship and employment; as well as information technology and communication.
“As of now, a total of 280 young individuals have participated in the programme from all 56 state constituencies,” he added.
This article first appeared in the Selangor Journal monthly August edition, published on August 9, 2021.
