Address at the opening of the 2017 Divisional Youth and Sports Conference
 
•    Youth Representatives and Officials
•    Invited guests
•    Distinguished Speakers
•    Ladies and Gentlemen
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Bula vinaka, Namaste and a good morning to you all

I am delighted to be present at the opening of your Divisional Youth and Sports Conference. It is always a pleasure to be among youth representatives and those who work with the youth as we walk the talk together to mould the leaders of, and for, our future.  It is a relay as one generation contributes to the development of the next.

As you gather today, as peers as well as beneficiaries, we hope that you will help us establish a new direction for this Ministry.  We really want to look not just at today, but at tomorrow and the longer term future.

Throughout Government and the civil service, we are committed to providing services to our clients, to the Fijian public, in an efficient, effective and economic way.

We need to be guided by the needs of the country as we work collectively to meet these training requirements to give further impetus to economic growth in Fiji.  We need your input as the young people who need assistance to become economically active and, in some instances, more economically active.

We need the input of the private sector to identify their needs so that their business can grow and more young people with the requisite skills are able to compete for attractive jobs.  

We need to guide training institutions involved in the formal, informal and non-formal education sectors to provide training to meet the skills required for the economy.  

We need to ensure we are able to absorb people into the formal and informal sector, that people are in a position to save and create wealth and therefore to help our economy expand.

This conference is being held simultaneously across the 4 Divisions and it holds special importance as it is being held at a time of significant growth and progress on a national scale.

This conference provides a forum for intensive dialogue to guide us as we start our planning for the 2017-18 financial year as well as for the 3 financial years after that.  We really want you to give us honest advice on what you need us to do to help you. Our political leadership talks about “a leg up” and this is what we are about.  

This is your opportunity so please take it – with both hands!  In doing so, please polish your crystal balls to try and predict where we need to be as a country in  10 years’ time and what we need to do in the area of youth development to get there.  As Ministries, we will need to do the work to formulate the plans of how to get there – you just need to tell us what we need to do and why so we know what the expected outcomes will be.  This will be a cooperative approach across all Ministries and the training sector – it has to be in order for us to succeed.

Please look at the challenges we face in Fiji today.  Find creative and futuristic solutions.  At present the Ministry is very focused on:
•    training in agriculture and carpentry
•    training of women mainly in massage, cooking, baking and beauty treatments under the banner of multi-skills training
•    training in small boat engine repair, boatmasters and Seeds of Success (a values based program), project management, financial literacy in our empowerment training
•    training in music specifically marching band, dance band, meke and sigidrigi
•    training at a village level and at the Ministry’s 5 youth training centres.

Remembering our mandate is help people between the ages of 15 and 35 who are not in formal education, training or employment to get into economic activity, perhaps what we should be looking at is:
•    plumbers and electricians and tilers
•    general maintenance for the hotel industry
•    introduction to computers
•    developing websites to provide services like home deliveries for take aways, the weekly shopping or just generally doing sales online
•    improving dairy and other forms of farming
I am sure you can add to this list.

Some questions for you to consider:
•    We have a rural-urban drift so how can we provide more or better opportunities in the rural areas?
•    How can we make agriculture “sexy” because it is critical to food security and a real means of generating wealth?
•    How do we transform ourselves from a subsistence to a commercial or entrepreneurial approach in what we do generally?
•    How do we address the contradiction of needing to cut down trees so we have more farm land while also needing to reduce our carbon footprint by planting more trees?
•    How do we address resilience in the face of climate change and our vulnerability to natural disasters?
•    How do we use these training opportunities to break down gender stereotypes?

Though our country faces many challenges, it also has the advantage of many opportunities to achieve the common objective we all pursue, that of transforming Fiji into a country that we can all be even more proud of.

To transform these opportunities into a positive reality requires us all, younger and older Fijians, act together to realise the goal of a better life for all.

This is why this conference is critically important. Hopefully by the time you conclude, you will have agreed on the steps we will take together to contribute to nation and economy building, whether by creating positive change or being resilient and fostering enthusiasm for the greater good.

To do this, you will have to provide a safe space for an honest and open assessment of the major elements that characterize our society, encompassing both the positives and the negatives.

Therefore all of us, Government Institutions, National Associations and stakeholders must take the opportunity and the responsibility to contribute to development and nation building with greater inclusion and coordinated action.

During the 2015 National Youth and Sports Conference, the views of young Fijians were captured in the “Laucala Youth Declaration”. This Declaration affirmed the commitments made under the “2014 Baku Commitment to Youth Policies” and the World Program of Action 2010 and beyond. It also built on the “2014 Suva Declaration on Youth”.  There is a significant contribution that young people can and should make towards national development.  We have these Declarations in place – now we need to move to greater coordination to provide services and training required to achieve greater prosperity.

However, it is not only youth development that occupies us.  We need to reinforce the importance of physical activity and sports in our lives. I say physical activity as that can include gardening, cleaning the house, ballroom and traditional dancing – it is not just about competition.  According to the requirements published by several Surgeons-General around the world, we all should be physically active for at least 45 minutes a day – so active that it is strenuous and raises our heartbeat.  In order to promote better health across Fiji, we also need to re-assess our diet and reduce our helpings, eat more fruit and vegetables, less salt and deep fried food and dare I say it, less kava and alcohol.  I know you are probably thinking that will take the fun out of life – but realistically speaking, life is getting shorter as we are not looking after ourselves properly.  As a result, we are not fully able to contribute to our economy and society. So please think about very carefully and make a commitment to becoming physically active and an agent of change.

I would also like to emphasise another aspect of change – that we should no longer accept as “normal” poor service that we receive.  This is in particular reference to the civil service.  As Permanent Secretaries, we are committed to improving service levels and service delivery.  We want to know when we are failing in this duty so that we can improve.  We want to set a new standard for others in Fiji to follow.  We want to implement what Mahatma Ghandi said:  “Be the change you want to see” and lead by example.

Finally, I would like to thank UNICEF for their valuable contribution to these Divisional conferences, you - our stakeholders - and those who have worked tirelessly to bring this conference together. I thank all the speakers who will engage you in thought provoking sessions during the program.

As I said earlier, please take this opportunity to help us develop a new agenda.  Using the words of Nelson Mandela, former freedom fighter and the first democratically elected President of South Africa:  
“Be the scriptwriters of your destiny and feature yourselves as stars that showed the way towards a brighter future”.

Vinaka vakalevu, Dhanyevaad, Shukria, Faieksia and thank you!