Have the young challenge us with their vision — Wong

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SIBU: The country needs the young adults to chart the course of its future.

Wong and the youths all set for the mass cleaning campaign at Sibu Gateway.

In making this call, Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) deputy chairman Datuk Andrew Wong said the young were the “bridge” between the present and the future.

“The future of Malaysia, in particular Sibu would become nothing without the contribution of its young people,” he said after launching the inaugural mass cleaning campaign, organised by the local branch of Association of Churches Sarawak (ACS) in cooperation with the council, at Sibu Gateway yesterday.

Over 500 Christian youths from the Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM), Sarawak Iban Association Conference (SIAC), Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference (SCAC), Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, City Harvest Mission as well as the Boys and Girls Brigades, took part in the community project themed ‘I Love Malaysia’.

Wong pointed out that if any group stopped listening to its young, or discouraging them from having dreams, then the nation’s vision of a better future would die.

Thus, he added, it would be the role of young adults to challenge the present structures, systems and values with the objective of building a better tomorrow.

“It is not that they (the young) ‘have the answers’; any more than the elders ‘have the answers’. Rather these young adults are here to challenge us with their dreams, visions and passion. As in the way of the young, their solutions could sometimes be simplistic, but it doesn’t detract from the value of their perception about the directions in which we should grow,” Wong said.

In this regard, he challenged those present at the programme to love the country, and their home town, in their own unique way.

“Bridge the future and present with your dreams and visions and I assure you that SMC and myself will be behind you all the way.

“I urge all our young adults to dream their dreams and speak forth their visions for the good of us all, and pray that we can encourage them to challenge us deeply.

“Also I pray that many more ‘senior adults’ would have enough love for our young to be courageous in walking with them as they strive to be all that God has created them to be,” Wong stressed.