New activities in store for youths next year

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FOR THE ALBUM: Sng (third right) accompanied by medical specialists from Singapore Dr Kevin Lee (second left) and Dr Jennifer Liauw (right), together with manager of Parkway Health (Sarawak) representative Connie Tan (second right) and others during the Parkway Health Talk.

SIBU: Youths will get a taste of a myriad of new activities that are in store for them next year, promising an exciting 2012, revealed Youth Advisor in the Chief Minister’s Department Larry Sng.

He disclosed that there would also be more funding to implement youth-based activities, hinting that some of the planned activities are new ones while others are successful activities from the past.

“Next year will be an exciting year when compared to previous years. We will be having more activities and we get more from the government in implementing them,” Sng told The Borneo Post when commenting on new activities in the pipeline for youths in the state, adding that he was waiting for next year’s budget.

“But I would not want to jump the gun in announcing what these activities are. Let us first analyse the findings of our particular exercises in getting to know the youths in Sarawak better.”

Met after the Parkway Health Talk at a leading hotel here on Saturday, Sng, however, said he was very much looking forward to work with the youths in the state.

He said a survey involving some 7,600 respondents was conducted last year and it gave him an idea of what youths really wanted.

But to really engage the youths, he felt they would need to go deeper so as to have a better understanding of their interests and needs.

From government standpoint, he said they would not want any overlapping of activities.

Added Sng: “We also do not want to implement activities that don’t have any impact on youths.”

The youth advisor disclosed that from now till year-end, they would focus more on research to understand youths’ interest and needs.

He added that the implementation of the findings would be done statewide beginning next year.

Asked on the use of social media to better engage the youths, he revealed that they had identified a few organisations to work on this further.

He said: “We will be working very closely with them and see how we can link them up together with the government so that they could actually promote these activities on our behalf.”

Instead of reinventing the wheel, he suggested that bloggers and IT-savvy youths be engaged to work with them in terms of implementation of youth-based activities.