The Master of Ceremony;
 Government Officials;
 The Youth of this Nation;
 Ladies and Gentlemen.

Bula Vinaka and a Very Good Morning to you all.

The 12th of August is a day set aside globally by the United Nations to commemorate young people's achievement. While we mark this important stand-alone date to mark your achievements and contributions to society and nation building, let me state clearly that we believe that your achievements and potential is rightfully celebrated every day.

You, the youth of Fiji, are our today and tomorrow. And as such, I am proud to officially open the 2021 International Youth Day celebrations. And as we gather here today, we do so in a very different fashion meeting virtually, something we're all growing accustomed to in the New Normal Times. This is due to the COVID 19 pandemic, and I would like our next meeting to be face to face.

In order to do that, I humbly urge that you our youth of Fiji, promote vaccination targets, so we can more to a new normal, but without lockdowns or lockouts. And participate in the great tradition of Fijian gatherings and engage in meaningful dialogues through our talanoa mode.

The theme of this year's International Youth Day is, “Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health”, with the aim of highlighting that the success of such a global effort will not be achieved without the meaningful participation of young people. It also highlights the global vision and part of Fiji's 5- and 20-year National Development Plans (NDP) to improve food and nutrition security. Ladies and Gentlemen, Fiji's vision aligns itself with Goal 2 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

This year's International Youth Day is an opportunity to continue dialogues on how Governments, young people and youth-led and youth-focused organizations, as well as other stakeholders, are transforming food systems and assess and provide input in order to cultivate an enabling environment towards the achievement of our NDP goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

My Ministry – that of Youth and Sports has changed the focus of our activities in our programs as a proactive set of measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the ministry has responded to the increasing numbers of youth returning to their villages and settlements as the job markets in urban areas have contracted. Most young people have turned to farming in order to make ends meet.

This is a sustainable means of improving our food security. As the world continues to battle immediate challenges such as COVID, long term challenges like climate change, means we have to act now and address how we best feed our nation, and entrench food security in our economic planning.

We have reached out to youth clubs by providing them with farming materials for them to become productive contributors to national food security. It has also meant that more of our youth, instead of being aimless without any prospects in our urban areas, are returning to the land. This is an important initiative and one that has produced results. The end game should be that we need more youth to turn to the land, rather than the razzle dazzle of the city bright lights.

We have assisted a total of 147 youth clubs consisting of 4, 243 beneficiaries altogether in the last financial year. I am pleased to add to this the current assistance numbers and to date we have provided assistance to 30 youth clubs and 768 members. This assistance is uniformly spread across our Central, North, Eastern and Western zones. This assistance supports the theme of this year's International Youth Day by encouraging youth through food production and promotion of food security.

In addition to this event's program, I wish to officially launch our TikTok Poetry Competition which is open to all registered youth clubs.

With the theme of “Youth Innovation for Human Health” or “Youth Innovation for Planetary Health”, participants must create a TikTok video of just under a minute highlighting the theme of the poem.

We will recognize the efforts of the youth clubs with In-Kind rewards. The first prize includes $1,000 worth of farming tools and equipment. Second Prize is worth $700 worth of farming materials and third prize is at $500 worth. We have seen your talent and creativity on TikTok and would like to see more.

So I encourage you to participate, put on your thinking caps and get those creative juices flowing. May the best teams win!

Ladies and Gentlemen, on a much serious note. As the number of people with COVID 19 continues to increase in the current pandemic, everyone has a role to play in taking care of ourselves and our loved ones to slow down the spread of the virus. With the prolonged impact of the current pandemic, it is also critical to keep all Fijians physically active and engage everyone to promote wellness and health.

We cannot afford to continue to gather for grog sessions or for drinks or even birthdays. The blunt fact is that such gatherings are killing Fijians by spreading COVID 19. As youths, you are better educated and have greater access to information, and must become the front line of our efforts to control this evil virus as we work towards our vaccination targets.

I must point out that the vaccination targets will protect the majority, but as we sadly see almost every day those who are not vaccinated will continue to be victims of this deadly disease. Once again, I humbly plead with all of you to protect your loved ones and your community by encouraging everyone to be vaccinated.

From the health perspective embedded in this year's theme, today we are also launching a special video message from our sports team, conveying a few important messages to all Fijians during this current pandemic and simple ways of keeping physically active.

Ladies and Gentlemen, while we're on the topic of keeping physically active and healthy. I would like to acknowledge and commend the performance of our Olympic champions the Fiji Rugby Sevens Men's team with their back-to-back win of gold and Women's team for the inaugural achievement with bronze medal. You have all brought great joy to our nation.

As the Hon. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama pointed out that these achievements brought pride, joy and unity to Fiji. And the Fijian Government has come to the party in a substantial and meaningful way with an allocation of $1million dollars to celebrate the victory.

This of course is planned for when Fiji has achieved its vaccination target to ensure that we can come together in safety and in numbers to pay our tributes and respects to these men and women, all of them falling in the category of youths of Fiji, for bringing such glory to the nation.

These champions have lifted the spirits of the entire nation at a very challenging time with their magnificent win in Tokyo. All over the country, people were able to set aside their worries for a few precious moments as we cheered on our Fiji Rugby Sevens team.

For a brief moment, their magic on the field and the emotions that they carried and pride in Fiji and the noble banner blue provided us with welcome relief in these trying times. The world has once again watched the magicians from Fiji conquer all on the greatest global sporting event – the Olympics.

And this time the magicians included the Fijiana, who showed the world that they will be a force to reckon with standing proud and shoulder to shoulder to the mens team. The best of our men and women representing Fiji on the field bring us together as a country and demonstrate to our people what teamwork and hard work can accomplish.

Vinaka vakalevu Coach Gareth Baber and Saiasi Fuli. Vinaka vakalevu to every single player!

The message of this international youth day and the plans we have in place for youth development means we have to break the COVID cycle. Fiji has committed to vaccination as the only means of breaking its evil hold on us.

So our workers can have jobs, so our children can go to schools, so borders can open and we can travel and mingle freely. The most important message from this international youth day is to make a larger appeal to all Fijians, especially our youth: Please, treat COVID-19 safety guidelines with total sincerity.

Listen to authorities and abide by all COVID19 protocols. Lives depend on your actions. So, act responsibly.

I am proud of the new initiatives we have announced today and look forward to substantial and meaningful results from these programs.

I wish you all a Happy International Youth Day and may you all enjoy the programme of the day.