BY MIKE TUA
IN today’s complex society, a setting where uncertainty, violence, illicit drugs and alcohol, and other substance abuse become the order of the day, youths throughout the country are faced with social issues ranging from unemployment unwanted pregnancy, sexual exploitation, and insecurity, young people cannot grow and thrive by chance alone.
As for Fiona Shanel, 33 years- old from Guadalcanal province who is married to a Malaitan with six children and resides at Fishing Village, East of Honiara. She knows very well that youths are the future leaders of our country.
In 2009, she established a youth group when her family moved to the End community of Fishing village.
Being a community group leader for almost six years, she has sacrificed her precious time, commitment, and effort to do everything necessary to positively engage the youths of her community and to prepare them to take their community ahead in their fight against crime and unemployment.
“Most of the boys and girls (youths) in our community lacked the opportunity to further their education. Therefore, I felt very sorry for them and decided to form our youth group.
“The decision was made right from the bottom of my heart.
“The objective was to open their eyes and to allow them to participate in constructive NGOs and government-funded youth programs and organized sports activities,” Fiona said.
Unfortunately, as much as this is being done, it is still an undeniable fact that young people in the End community are still unable to achieve their potential because of the system that naturally put them at the disadvantage.
She said over the years, I have been nurturing kids who have no support from their parents and have aimlessly roamed around our community seeking a better home.
“I want to help and encourage them because most of them have heavily involved in the consumption of illicit alcohol and drugs. Therefore, I want to change their lives and prepare them for a good future.
“Most of our youths have been involved in illicit drug and alcohol activities at the lower age of 10 years and above. The main idea to establish the group was to bring our youths together and to give them more positive encouragement to change their lives forever.
“I managed to provide shelter and food for them in a similar way I gave love and care to my children. I believe this is my dream to help our youths move forward in community participation because from there it will redirect and reshape their lives for a better person in our community and country.”
The mother of six strongly believes that to prepare his youths for the challenges of life ahead, her initiative is also a very challenging task.
“As a female leader, it has been a very challenging task for me to manage the affairs of youth development in my community.
“Sometimes I have to get rough when dealing with youth issues. However, my years of experience as a youth community leader have given me more confidence and wisdom to handle and overcome tough issues prevalent in our community.
“Although it’s very tough at certain times I managed to resolve most social issues happening in my community with a common understanding and respect from misbehaving youths.
“Having a motherly status has given me more experience to work with youths. My role as a mother has molded both my social and intellectual ability,” she said.
In her recognition as a passionate youth leader and more especially through her contribution to the advancement of young people in her community, she managed to break some of the barriers through the promotion of self-confidence.
“My biggest success as a community leader was to see the lives of my youths changing more positively from worst to good and to see them valuing their potential to engage in fishing business activities and other relevant youth funded employment programs in the country.”
She noted having experienced a few challenges but it does not have any negative impacts because has a lot of positive support from her husband and also from other families and youths in their community.
“My biggest challenge is to play the balance between my role as a mother of a family and a youth leader of a community.
“However despite those challenges, my biggest inspiration and words of positive encouragement come from my husband. He has a modest personality and always encourages me to continue with my responsibility to manage the youth affairs of our community.
“Therefore, I have earned a lot of immense support from my husband to take the lead in overseeing youth programs and activities in our community.
“Most of the youths in our community are related to my husband and they have shown big respect for me and him. They always look at me as their mother. They have shown both of us a lot of respect both socially and culturally,” Shanel said.
Whilst describing herself as a person with an easy-going character, Fiona says she always put herself on the level of the youths so that they can understand her more openly.
“My role as a youth leader requires no university degree skills but demands only passion from my heart. I believe youths are sometimes very hard to work with them, therefore my leadership role demands patience, genuine understanding, and good communication skills.
“If you go rough on them it’s just like chasing them away so as a leader you must talk to them in a way that they can easily positively understand you more.”
Fiona says that the most enjoyable part of her work in the community which always makes her feel happy was bringing youths to sit down together to share funny jokes to make them laugh with fun.
“Every day I would encourage my youths to engage in sporting activities. Most of the youths in my community have shown a more keen interest in sports apart from any other things.
“I encourage youths who lack the opportunity to further their education to turn to sports. It can make people succeed in life as well.”
He encouraged every community within Honiara to establish and register a youth group.
“Communities should start a youth group. It is very helpful, especially for youths. The idea of working together is the only way to make us succeed. For a single person to change a community is hard but as a group, we can make a change,” she said.
Meanwhile, he encouraged parents to be supportive of any form of youth development in their community.
“Probably some parents seem to ignore their children when they grow up into their adolescent stage of life but it’s very important because it is one of the stages in life in which children can be strongly influenced by their peers.
“Parents need to encourage and support their children even though they might grow older in their age because there are our future leaders of this country.”
Fiona’s plan as a youth leader is to establish a proper community center building.
“I don’t know what the future holds for me as a youth leader but probably before I pass on the leadership role to anyone in the future. I want to establish a proper house [community center] for youths to meet and discuss important issues because at the moment we normally held our meetings at my house. Acquiring a piece of land is our only problem at the moment, however, despite the problem, I want to leave behind my dream of establishing a youth center for the End village community.”
