Busoga Youth Desk to inculcate values, love for culture among youth

I was recently appointed by the King of Busoga through his Katukiro Dr.Joseph Muvawala to be on the youth Desk of Busoga Kingdom and a lot first ran into my mind. First of all, When we hear the term Youth, the first thing that comes in our minds, is the energetic group of society who always want positive change in their own family, community, society, state and overall development of the country. They are the change agent of society, who still have the capacity to change the society and on many occasion they are referred to as tomorrow’s leaders, parents, professionals, workers and today’s assets.

They always have positive motivation to do something good for their country. The youth always desire for development and expect more opportunity, facility, and so on. The youth are fearless and unstable; it encourages them to be dynamic and this has always made them very useful useful to the nation.

The youth are known as the backbone of the country and the regions where they stay. Youth always talk about development of the country. They even complain about the pace of development and desire rapid development of the areas where they stay and in this case they can always talk about the development of their Kingdom.

According to United Nation “Youth are those between the age of 15 and 24 year". So it is necessary that to develop a community or nation all should focus on development of youth and it is through this that they will turn to be very objective and resourceful in the communities where they stay.

Youth are the change agent but unfortunately they are misled and misused by political parties and marginalised by policy makers. Kingdoms/or government are not able to mobilise large number of youth at all times. The youths are not being used well by the nation and it’s the big reason as to why some countries still face poverty, unemployment, corruption, suicide, and various kinds of socio-economic problems.

In Policies, youth are always acknowledged but policy has always been for youth and not about them. Government or state makes so many programs and plans without involvement of youth but those kinds of programs may not be effective for this generation youth. So government and policy makers especially in Busoga region should include youth to make plans, policies, and programs for themselves.

Talking about culture, the reason I see very many youth in Busoga of today being overwhelmed by the western culture is because somewhere they are ignorant of the vast cultural diversity and heritage of their own land. In fact the young generation should be imparted the whole knowledge about the great Busoga culture during the early periods of their childhood and this should always be done by their parents but again it seems many parents in Busoga also missed some cultural lessons while they were still young so they end up having nothing to offer to their children.

At schools and particularly at the elementary stage children should be given knowledge of different traditions, customs, patterns, and folk ways, complied in our culture. This can be done through medium of showing them pictures, story-telling, out-door cultural group activities and etc. Even at the homes and surroundings especially the parents and elders should teach their children about the significance and versatility of our culture. Youth should become the Representatives of our Busoga Culture

While we are talking about developing our culture then this process should be delegated to those hands which may bring newness, innovation into it and yet can maintain its grace and dignity. And no one else other than the young generation can do this thing at best, but first of all, they should attain the knowledge of their culture; its importance, unique features and the possibilities for any further modification.

And once they know this all they are ready to represent the culture in front of others and this is also a way to make our culture advanced and developed. Youth have the potential to embrace the grace of its culture and also have the intelligence to implement alterations without harming it and without encouraging orthodoxy and conservatism. The aim should be to increase their participation in the process of cultural development.

Encouragement to Protect the Cultural Heritage

Busoga civilisation possesses a huge cultural heritage that includes various cultural objects, commodities, cultural monuments which symbolise the multiplicity of our culture. Kagulu hill, the kigulu cultural museum, and the Pre & Post Independence era each phase has left our region with the impressions of having a great cultural heritage of traditions and trends.

And this is what that makes a kingdom completely outstanding; the imprints of ancient civilisations and the kind of cultures which prevailed in those civilisations are certainly the symbol of immensity of our culture. Thus, youth should protect such an ancient cultural heritage; they should show keenness in exploring and researching upon the cultural changes that had taken place so far.

Refreshing the traditional and ethnic values

Values composite an important part of any culture and our culture does have many great traditional and ethnic values which raise the brotherhood among the human races. Being a citizen Busoga, the youth have the duty to refresh the traditional values of our culture so that they do not get faded with the passage of time.

But they will not be able to pursue this very task by themselves but rather it is the duty of the families, cultural educators and chiefs in their respective chiefdoms to introduce the youth to their values. Values would add up to the brilliant personalities of the youth and would make them better human beings and in this way also our culture will get acknowledged and appreciated by the rest of the regions and the world at large.

Cultural development is not a process of one day and it needs a sufficient time to; evolve. The culture that we all have been following so far have a scope of some modifications and changes according to the demand of the modern time and only the young generation of Busoga can do this task with ease and it must be the core reason as to why the YOUTH DESK was formed and put to task to make sure that the youth wing in Busoga is in direct collaboration with the Kingdom.

All I think that the youth lack in Busoga is the knowledge of culture, encouragement, participation and respect for their culture but being part of the Youth Desk, I am very sure this should be one of our duties to make sure that our fellow youth understand that culture is our own reflection thus this reflection should be maintained with purity and dignity.

Michael Woira is a Communications Officer, Busoga Youth Desk