The idea of Youth Stewardship is motivated by my belief in the ability of the youth to bring about change in society. Being well-informed and self-aware are critical if young people are to engage more robustly in society. We can, with broader, deeper understanding of what it means to contribute to our society, take on the responsibilities which we are best equipped to address by virtue of our position within the domains I discuss below.

These 5 domains conform to the criteria discussed in the last post and are without a doubt fundamental in the formative, precursory phase of life which we recognize as the age of youth.

The 5 domains of youth stewardship are:

1. The Personal Domain

2. The Learning Domain

3. The Street

4. The Internet

5. Friends & Family

THE PERSONAL DOMAIN

This is the primal responsibility for any youth, anywhere: Stewardship over oneself. This very obvious point is well worth repeating because success with respect to this responsibility is a critical part of success with respect to the other domains discussed below.

There are 2 aspects to this responsibility: the private and the sociopolitical. Privately, we owe it to ourselves to develop character befitting stewards of society. This includes confronting the question of what it really means to be a good person, and to have a good life.

On the sociopolitical front, we must understand that we have rights. We need these rights to attain our human potential and, we should seek ways of understanding the broader dimensions of our rights in order to better defend and protect them.

As a young Nigerian woman, I would like to see more discussion on our right to privacy. Without belabouring the point, I would like to emphasize that the loss of privacy is often a precursor to the loss of other freedoms and thus, the right to privacy should neither be trivialized nor confused with criminal concealment. The right to privacy impacts upon our independence, our freedom of movement and association, and our freedom of speech.

THE LEARNING DOMAIN

This includes formal institutions like schools, and non-formal institutions like clubs & NGOs. The reasons for our need and dominance in this domain are clear. It goes beyond knowledge acquisition to include developing social skills and life skills, all of which impact our ability to be the best that we can be. We have the right to receive an education and to ensure that our educational institutions live up to the right standard.

In the Nigerian context, neither of these are easily obtained as mitigating factors abound. We must choose between undependable, under-performing higher institutions and fairly expensive local or international ones. In spite of these challenges and the limited means at our disposal, we must invest in producing the kind of institutions we deserve.

We should find ways of ensuring that the real problems we faced with respect to these institutions are brought to light. I am sure many will agree that a lot of issues are lost under blanket descriptions like poor standards and corrupt practices. We can and should seek insight on solutions by better understanding and exposing our own experiences.

This is one domain where the primacy of what some have called ‘the Legacy Project’ is clear. Our success in this area will be that other young people will be spared the inadequacies we endured. Neglecting this responsibility is the surest path to a vicious cycle whose impact on our country are already all too obvious.

THE STREET

I use the term ‘street’ to describe literal and metaphorical transitional spaces. The time of youth is after all a time of transition: Developmental, Formative, and Precursory. The literal street is only one transitional space.

Institutions like Libraries, Learning Centres (like what British Council used to be), Business and IT hubs (where young people can develop their career skills, build businesses while managing their limited resources), web browsing hubs, etc, all serve as transitional spaces by filling the time and engagement gap between graduation and steady employment.

We must navigate the literal street to attend our lectures (for some), to attend job fairs and career fairs, to attend job interviews, to create our social and career networks, etc. Having reliable, affordable and dignified means of transportation is thus of great importance to the youth.

In addition, the Nigerian youth need metaphorical transitional spaces to mind the massive gap between graduation and employment resulting from the lack of jobs in Nigeria. We need these spaces to build capacity, to stay sharp, engaged and grounded. In light of this, an even bigger failure in the Nigerian system than the lack of adequate employment, is the lack of these transitional spaces to engender and propel continued productivity among the youth.

We, as the youth, should embrace a responsibility of advocacy for the literal and metaphorical street. On one hand, we need to articulate and emphasize how the dismal transport conditions across the country affect us uniquely. And on the other hand, we must understand that advocating for job creation is only one element of coming to terms with our collective situation. We need to envision a variety of transitional spaces and encourage people, in the public and private spheres, to create them.

THE INTERNET

This domain is a very clear instance of youth dominance at work (by number and by influence). We all love the internet for being what it is: interconnected, accessible and free of boundaries based on nationality. And of course, there are those virtual spaces (Twitter, Facebook, Weibo) used and loved by youth of all nationalities.

However, I believe we are yet to develop websites, web-tools, and apps that meet our unique needs as Nigerian youth. This includes fora for discussion and conversation about our experiences and our perspective, a reliable pool of documents, articles and ebooks which we can access for free, ‘How-to’ advice that is candid about the nature of the Nigerian condition while giving young people much needed free and reliable guidance, etc.

This is what has made the internet revolutionary for people in other countries. It is our responsibility to envision, innovate and create the tools we need to rejig or reconfigure the internet to propel our giant leap forward into a better future. We may first need to invest in creating conditions and perhaps, legislation to protect and ensure the rights of publishers and web users.

To do this, we need to be informed, we need to be engaged and we need dialogue on issues that matter.

FRIENDS & FAMILY

Our family and friends together comprise our first and most intimate social space. And it is, without question, important to love, respect and appreciate them. It also important however, to be conscious of the nature and form of influence they can have on us. Our identities, values, character, behaviour, etc depend to a large extent on what happens within our families and amongst our friends.

Indeed, stewardship within this domain can be understood as an immediate extension of our stewardship within the personal domain. The power of culture and influence created by family and friends should not be underestimated.

This influence however, ceases to be one-dimensional as we grow and mature. I believe we should aspire to live and encourage the best values within and among our family and friends.

It is difficult to speak in general terms about what family and friendship should be especially within the context of cultural diversity. Our responsibility of stewardship here will mean many different things for many young people but it must begin with having the courage to speak up about our convictions, in spite of fear and taboo. Two scenarios are possible within this domain: our powers of persuasion may prove strong or conversely, our fears and vulnerabilities may dominate. There is no denying however, that we have a responsibility within this domain.

CONCLUSION

This list of domains is in no way complete nor are my discussions intended to be exhaustive. My purpose is simply to convey in relatable terms what I think the fundamental domains of youth stewardship are, and some of the issues that concern the Nigerian Youth especially, with respect to them.

In my next article, I will discuss some of the values, general and practical, which I think will prepare and enable the youth to have sustained positive influence within these domains, and eventually, on society as a whole.