By REBECCA MUSHOTA –
VICE-PRESIDENT Inonge Wina has told youths not to just talk about what they intend to do with their lives but participate in Government’s youth empowerment programmes.
Ms Wina said youths should not be idle, but be proactive in implementing various Government empowerment programmes.
Ms Wina was speaking at a thanksgiving youth interdenominational church service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Lusaka yesterday.
“It must be appreciated, however, that while Government and other stakeholders are implementing various programmes for youth empowerment, you, the youths must not sit idle, but be proactive in
shaping your own welfare and destiny,” she said.
Ms Wina said Government had devised many youth empowerment programmes that the young people could take advantage of.
She said one of the initiatives was the first-ever launch of the Youth Empowerment and Employment Action Plan by the President Edgar Lungu yesterday.
The plan provided measures and strategies for empowering and creating employment opportunities for the youths.
Ms Wina said even the Bible in Proverbs 18:9 discouraged mere talk and that a person that was slack was as good as one that destroyed.
She said Zambian youths should take an example from youths in the Bible that made a difference in their society like David, Esther and Jesus Christ.
Even the first Republican President Kenneth Kaunda was young when he became president and presided over a youthful Cabinet.
Ms Wina said this year’s theme ‘Youth champions of dialogue, peace, unity and economic emancipation’ was timely considering that Zambia was going to the poll in August this year.
During this period, many youths were used as tools to promote violence.
She urged the young people to work hard at promoting peace and denouncing violence.
During homily, the Zambia National Service (ZNS) chaplain Eve Mulenga said youths should embrace peace and stop boasting that they were violent and untouchable.
Reverend Mulenga said youths should champion peace because it was a prerequisite for economic emancipation.
Several people, among them Dr Kaunda, Cabinet ministers, church choirs, youth groups, attended the function.