Flora Teckie
Flora Teckie
Currently half of the people on our planet are aged 30 or younger.
Are we adequately using the energy, the potential, and talents of young people – a very large segment of our society?
Young people are eager to contribute meaningfully to discussions about humanity’s current and future well-being. They aspire, and have the potential, to channel their energy, capacities and talents towards building better communities, and the advancement of civilisation.
Young people, in the Bahá’í view, represent “a tremendous source of intellectual and social potential waiting to be developed and channeled towards socially constructive ends”. They can become catalysts for constructive change in our communities, should they be given the adequate training and opportunities.
Our youth can be encouraged to draw on the zeal and enthusiasm which characterise the period of youth, and to make decisive contributions to the advancement of both material and spiritual civilizations. But they must prepare themselves for this task.
“The experience of the Bahá’í worldwide community suggests that young people have a significant role to play in transforming society. When youth are taken seriously and resources are channelled towards different programs that raise their capacity to become significant actors in processes of community change, the results can be striking”.
An adequate education and training would empower our youth to act in the long-term interests of humanity. It would aim at cultivating in young people mutual tolerance, compassion, love, understanding, brotherhood, and respect for different ethical values.
By nurturing in our youth the consciousness of the oneness of humanity and a sense of world citizenship, they can be empowered to build a just, united, safe and peaceful future.
According to the Baháí International Community, “To serve their communities effectively, young people should strive to understand with growing clarity the implications of the principle of the oneness of humanity.
For too long, differences among human beings, both real and imagined, have served as obstacles preventing the progress of entire peoples and nations. This planet is our one, common homeland. We must all care for it. We must all have the opportunity to thrive in it. Regardless of differences in class, culture, ethnicity, belief, nationality, and gender, at our core, we share a common identity – we are all human”.
This is only possible through adequate education – an education that would enrich both the mind and the spirit, an education that would combine science and religion, belief and reason, one that helps to free our youth from fanaticism and superstition.
Through proper guidance, our youth can be empowered to transform their own lives and become catalysts for change in their communities. They can be guided to override the needs of their lower nature in keeping with ethical requirements, to control and channel their natural drives and urges, and to transform them into human perfections.
For our youth to become catalysts for constructive change in their communities, there is need for an educational process that contributes to individual growth, as well as to social transformation – both of which are necessary for the creation of peaceful and harmonious communities.
The Baháí International Community states that, “Educational processes should assist youth to recognize and express their potentialities while developing in them the capacity to contribute to the spiritual and material prosperity of their communities. Indeed, one cannot fully develop one’s talents and capabilities in isolation from others.
The concept of a two-fold moral purpose—to develop one’s inherent potentialities and to contribute to the transformation of society—provides an important axis of the educational process”.
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