| De: |
"Ming Kun Aw" [ Profil ] |
| Sujet: |
(sans titre)
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| Envoyé: |
Oct 6th, 2008 - 15:56:41 |
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1. Do you know of efforts among young people to coordinate their efforts on and
participation in promoting family planning, reproductive health, addressing
sexually transmitted disease and gender equality?
Yes I do in Singapore.
2. In your experience, what conditions have led to the best opportunities for
young people to actively participate in activities which seek to promote family
planning, reproductive health, and gender equality and address sexually
transmitted disease? What have been the greatest barriers?
I think conditions will mean the present state of civil society in the
particular country, in my case Singapore, and how local efforts
interact with the civil society at large, and inevitably Singapore and
the later the world.
"Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and
social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a
functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a
state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial
institutions."
From Wikipedia
It is necessary to talk about civil society before we can jump into
the question of fostering proper conditions in which young people can
participate.
First and foremost the political system in one's country has to be
responsive to the demands of civil society - NGOs, VGOs and any other
organisations not under the government or business entities. You must
be thinking why? In order for the younger ones like us to want to
participate in such activities, we want to be heard in one's
community. It is no coincidence that totalitarian countries don't see
a proper functioning civil society, unlike undemocratic countries due
to the need to exert control over their population and such.
So here we have now, the first point: government which is responsive
to citizen's demand.
It is the single and first most important condition before
opportunities can come about.
Secondly I believe it is access. I think it is important for young
people to have unfettered access to the information they need for them
to actively participate in activities. With helpful information at
hand, young people can work at tackling the pressing issues and
identify first cause and not mere symptoms. Talking about the free
flow information inevitably leads us to the very first point. The
government has to be willing to cooperate with the civil society. The
government has to see themselves as stakeholder. How? The state has to
first recognised that civil society will be better pkayer than the
state with regard to the issues we are discussing today. From here,
funding comes.
In my experience leaving everything to civil society doesn't seem to
be effective, however, leaving everything to government is worse. What
is needed here is balance and we have it here in Singapore.
3. How have the perspectives and opinions of young people been perceived among
public and private institutions designing and implementing development
programmes, with particular attention to those on family planning, reproductive
health, sexually transmitted disease and gender equality?
Disdain. I think in a fairly conservative country like Singapore, or
Asian countries for that matter, views are not taken seriously. This
is wholly different isssue. It is the with age comes wisdom mentality
Asia country like Singapore subscribes to. I am not sure about
countries in the region but it is certainly true of Singapore.
Thank you all for your time and amazing input!
Have a great day all!
Yours
Nathan Aw Ming Kun
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