Fiji youth want more say, less tokenism

Transcript

The National Youth Council of Fiji says young people are being used as tokens in important issues like the flag change and they're calling for a bigger say in decisions of the state.

Entries for a competition to design a new flag closed on Friday and young people and children were especially encouraged to take part.

A spokesperson for the Council Miki Wali says it wants to see much more consultation and a referendum on the issue.

MIKI WALI: You're going to put, you know, young people on the billboards and put them on TV shows, TV commercials just for the sake of tokenism. Young people need to be involved to be engaged in the processes. They need to be informed, they need to know the history of the state, they need to know the importance of the flag and you need to know how they can participate and not just through competitions. And competitions around the flag is not a fair referendum.

SALLY ROUND: A you saying then that this comes down to civic education as well?

MW: Absolutely. And part of this is that the National Youth Council of Fiji has already prioritised civic education as one of our key priority areas even in these times of democratisation. So that is one of our significant areas that we'll be working on through the rest of this period.

SR: So young people are pretty united on this, that they're feeling left out?

MW: Absolutely, and what is also evident is that young people also are coming out and there's been a lot of conversations on social media. There's been different forums, numerous forums have been opened, even this year alone there's been thousands of forums that have just been opened up by different groups of people that are young people in their various capacities. Whether it's to do with the environment, whether it's to do with politics, culture, socio-economic stances, this is the platform that we can try to hold government accountable because it's the only one that's available at this stage right now apart from the other entry points that we are trying to embark with, but it's been quite difficult from this end because we are still in the post-electoral process.

SR: The flag debate, how important an issue is that for the council?

MW: This is very important because we as a council, we're mandated under the state to be the voice of young people and we cover quite a population of young people and these are young people from many diversities. Now this is important for us because we're having a government that is again dictating the process and telling us that we will change the flag only through competitions, and this is something that we don't recognise. All we are talking about is to have a proper public referendum, this is what we are pushing from our end.

SR: And have you spoken to the minister of youth about your concerns?

MW: We have prioritised separate meetings in terms of our key strategic with the state, particularly with the minister, so we've been having some conversations with some key people who normally deliver this to the ministers on our behalf, and that's quite productive of a start I must say. So we're calling for that general involvement in all aspects and areas of decision-level making processes whether it's to do with the state affairs, whether it's to do with youth and accountability etc., we're calling for all of that to take place.