That the youths require special preparations for adulthood as wells as opportunities for participation in society at large has been afforded the needed push with their involvement in the government ‘s crucial campaign against extreme poverty.

The Education Department which is concerned in carrying out the first Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United Nations in the Philippines has issued a call on the youths to use their talents and exert efforts to lead in the campaign to help reduce extreme poverty in the country.

The MDG has been adopted by the UN member states to halve extreme poverty around the globe by 2015.

The UN member countries have tapped their respective government agencies as well as private sectors and civil society groups to achieve the targeted reduction of global economic adversity among the people.

In tapping the youths for such legendary problem of impoverishment among the people, Education officials issued a directive mobilizing campus journalists “to use their pens to help the government fight extreme poverty.”

Next year when the National Schools Press Conference is held, it is expected to attract campus leaders and journalists nationwide with their ideas on the issue of poverty and how  to reduce it.

The annual NSPC gathering usually brings in thousands of campus writers from both private and public schools in the 16 regions around the country.

The purpose of the press conference, which will be held in Tagum City, Davao del Norte, in February next year, is primarily to heighten awareness of the problem of penury among the people and thus move, hopefully, both the government and the people to find effective ways to reduce, if not totally obliterate, its menacing presence everywhere.

With the youths who are themselves openly exposed to the degradation that poverty brings to the helpless sector of the population, it must be interesting how they will react to it in their own words as they make their own assessment of the problem as campus journalists.

Confronting the issue is surely a critical point in their own development and that, too, should be a serious concern.

The United Nations definition of youth is “a person between the age of 15 and 24,” although some organizations extend the age to 30.

According to sources, a youth organization is one that focuses on youth-led development and, in addition, where the management is largely made up of young people. Here, we have the College Editors’ Guild of  the Philippines organized in the 1930s by then UP Collegian editor Wenceslao Q.Vinzons from Indan, now Vinzons, Camarines Norte.

In a way, the use by the government of the youths in trying to comprehend the problems of poverty in the country reflects certain frustrations on the findings and recommendations of earlier studies done by consultants and experts that produced nothing.

Or it could be that the government failed to implement them because of ineptitude or simply incompetence. And then, again, maybe because of some political reasons, as if you didn’t know.

But maybe not.

What is important is that the government continues to harness every available resource to catch the spirit by which past great deeds were achieved and emulate them as we try to find solutions to the worsening curse of human poverty here and around the world.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)