Youth Council wants to help prevent suicide

KOTA KINABALU: The alarming number of suicides involving youths in the state has led the Sabah Youth Council (MBS) to call on the government to be entrusted with the unenviable task of contributing towards the prevention of suicides in Sabah.

“In the past three to four years, we have been shocked by several suicide incidents, which have all involved youths,” said MBS president Kevin T P Lim during the NGO’s 18th annual general assembly meeting at the Palace Hotel yesterday.

Lim said these incidents have been like a slap in the face for the leading youth organization, especially when some of the cases had included private messages and the reason for their action in the media.

This, he said, had projected the impression that youths in Sabah were willing to take their own life just because of problems related to relationships, emotions and unfulfilled desires.

“Youth leaders should take a moment to question whether there is a lack of integrity and personality among the youths in the state, and examine our role in this matter,” said the MBS president, who would be relinquishing his position soon.

“MBS and youth leaders in the state should be entrusted with the responsibility and be given the recognition and empowerment by the government to enable us to contribute effectively in the prevention of such problems,” he suggested.

The younger generation and youth leadership cannot escape from the responsibility of being solvers of problems faced by the society, and in recent years, the youths, through MBS, have garnered many local and international achievements, Lim said.

However, despite their many achievements, youth leaders have not been given due recognition for their efforts, especially when it comes to being nominated for state awards, Lim said.

“This omission had some impact in the hearts of some youth leaders who felt that their sacrifice and contributions had not been recognized,” said Lim, who also said that most youths have used their own money to help execute various programs in the state.

As a proactive measure, MBS has taken the initiative to assist the state government to extend recognition to youth leaders and achievers through the Sabah Youth Council Award.

“The stars and medals awarded would hopefully give recipients a boost in spirit so they would continue to contribute to Sabah’s youth empowerment agenda,” said Lim.

Sabah Youth and Sports Ministry deputy permanent secretary Awang Damit Awang Anak, who officiated the MBS annual general assembly meeting, said the ministry would establish three reference resources and implement new strategic thrusts to achieve the state’s youth agenda in 2015.

A RM280 million Sabah Youth Index 2014, the 2016–2020 Sabah Youth Strategic Plan and the state’s first Youth Policy are the three resources, according to him.

“The 2014 Sabah Youth Index is developed specifically as a benchmark to assess and measure associations in the state,” said the deputy permanent secretary, who represented the minister, Datuk Tawfiq Abu Bakar Titingan, at the ceremony.

According to Awang Damit, the Malaysian Youth Research and Development Institute (IPPBM) and the Youth and Sports Ministry have injected about RM140,000 each into the index, which is expected to be completed in February 2015.

“The index will also simultaneously help develop future aspirational youth programs based on the feedback of the youth grassroots respondents in the future. Described as ‘the way forward program’ by the minister, the programs will be carried out fully in 2015 in line with the 11th Malaysia Plan,” said Awang Damit, who also mentioned that the state’s youth strategic plan will be developed in line with the country’s goal of becoming a developed nation by 2020.

“For the first time, led by a team of experts from University Malaysia Sabah (UMS), the state will develop its own youth policy, which is expected to be completed in November 2015,” added Awang Damit, who also highlighted that the ministry had referred to the Malaysian Youth Policy in the past.

Besides that, the establishment of ‘1Kampung, 1Persatuan’, improvement of association capacity and management, strengthening of cooperation and smart partnership and the continuation of youth empowerment approach will be part of the state’s strategic thrusts in 2015, he added.

“There are approximately 2,000 registered villages in the state. The ‘1Kampung, 1Persatuan’ mechanism will bring about the possibility of establishing 2,000 grassroots youth associations. Understandably, this is not an easy feat and so far we have 403 in the state,” he said.

Among the challenges faced by these associations are the registration process factored by limited internet access and expertise as well as distance of their locality from the Youth and Sports Ministry, he said.

Awang Damit also stressed on the importance of capacity enhancement and maintenance of youth associations.

“There are many instances where associations have folded due to these problems, especially in terms of financial reports production. It is important for the ministry to serve, facilitate, make things easier, enable and empower youth, especially in the millennial generation, which was formerly known as the Y generation,” he said.

So far in 2014, a youth association empowerment approach has garnered a total participation of almost 300,000 youth in the state through the collaboration of the Youth and Sports Ministry and Sabah Youth Council.

“Statistically, there are a total of 1.023 million youths between the age of 15 and 40 in Sabah. However, based on the new national youth policy, which will be effective in 2018, there are approximately 574,000 youths between the ages of 15 and 30,” said Awang Damit.

“Our main target would be youths, aged between 18 and 25, which is approximately 376,000 here. So far, we have managed to achieve about 300,000, maximum, by empowering youth associations to promote youth culture movement. Hopefully we will reach 400,000 in 2015,” he added.

The empowerment approach has also enabled the implementation of 1,533 programs.

“The newly implemented mechanism has benefitted us and enabled us to implement about four programs a day throughout the 365 days in a year. It will continue to be implemented throughout 2015. Up to November 31, 2014, we have achieved 1.02% of 1,500 target in 2014,” he said.