DCT ropes in the youth and their voices to address related issues

The Druk Chirwang Tshogpa (DCT) is on a mission to form a youth division under its umbrella, heeding to the call of the youths and their problems.

The party will target youths from all the 20 pockets of the country appointing youth coordinators. The services are on a voluntary basis.

“We want to have consultative meeting for youths in all 20 pockets. From the meeting, we will document the findings and collaborate it in DCT’s manifesto. And these problems will be addressed,” said DCT President, Lily Wangchhuk.

She further stressed that it is the intention of DCT to come up with policy intervention that is responsive to the need of all sections of the society which also includes the youth and ‘to encourage the participation of youth in the electoral processes’.

In a recent meeting, the youth discussed their issues with DCT and came out with youth problems, the rampant ones easily being drugs, increasing crimes, while others delved around textbook-oriented education, lack of higher education in the country, teenage pregnancy, blue-collar jobs, forming gangs, mismatch of jobs, nepotism in job selection and many others.

DCT had also discussed solutions to many of the problems and it is yet to be revealed. Gleaning the issues, the DCT president said “The youths are taking the lead bringing their own problems and solutions”.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Kunzang Wangdi highlighted that they (youth) should do ‘charity, social service, volunteering, studying and training themselves to take up productive role when they grow older’.

“The best way to address the voice of the youth will be to firstly, let them form their own organizations (not political) and to let them work with the government,” said a member of the youth population, Phub ‘Kila’ Dorji.

Phub ‘Kila’ Dorji, 18 is a graduate of Yangchenphug Higher Secondary School (HSS) in Thimphu. Previously, he had also discussed some of the pertinent issues in the Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) shows in the presence of Minister of Labor and Human Resources, Lyonpo Dorji Wangdi and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s Gasa MP Damcho Dorji.

He said that ‘the move will be to form the eventual youth parliament of the country and the leader of the youth parliament should be given a seat in the Joint Sitting of the two houses to voice the third idea that comes from the youth’.

“DCT has a very young leader and being more from our generation, I believe that under her leadership DCT can perform with examples. Not only that, DCT has promised to appoint a youth association to talk matters that concern themselves, so this move will be welcome by everyone,” said Phub Dorji.

“There have been several policies that have an effect on us more than they do on the other parts of the general citizenry. The direct one is the Education City plan, a very long one taking about a decade or so, and we weren’t educated well enough about this plan by the government,” Phub ‘Kila’ Dorji said.

He said that “it is of utmost importance that we get to involve in this plan because by the time the plan is completed, the present league of leaders will have retired and left office. We will be taking over and by then if we aren’t prepared enough, we will make mistakes”.

Meanwhile, the DCT president told The Bhutanese that the role of youth is very crucial as they will not only play a role for this generation but also for all the generations to come and stressed that there is a need to review policies. And DCT will aim to see that policies, progresses and plans are responsive to the needs of today for all sections of the society.

The DCT has already finished their meetings with youths in Thimphu and will be soon leaving to other parts of the country, as DCT reasons that the problems will never be the same in all the localities and it will also have a diverse and different voices quoting ‘different men, different mind’.

Puran Gurung / Thimphu