In these days of the hottest summer of our lives - although probably cooler than others to come - I was reading Meryem El Mehdati, a young woman from the Canary Islands, and her wonderful first book, Supersaurio. It explains well what my generation and some more above and below feel. “You are a burden to your family, because time is running, because you are the most prepared generation in history, the worst paid in history, the most hyper-caffeinated in history, the most insecure, depressed and self-conscious in history." Always between overly positive phrases, always with high expectations for what we see on networks, and always being judged by adults, institutions, media, for centuries, as lazy, arrogant, given to enjoyment and selfishness, to complaining a lot, to asking for too much.
I guess it all depends on where we put the too much. Too much has been for young people, for years, to assume precariousness, unemployment, the need for psychological help that was almost always impossible to afford. Too many were the obstacles to developing our vital, work, artistic, professional projects. Often debating between instability, unemployment or poverty. Seeing ourselves doomed to a system designed against us, which cut off dreams. In which there was no room to talk about innovation, research, our culture and our History. The same system that prevented us from cultivating our land and taking care of it for ourselves, forcing us to sell it to those who came from outside with the will to buy it in the face of the complicity of those of always.
The years passed, and some of us who grew up in this difficult climate, decided to say "NO" to resignation, and begin to make possible another way of being in life. From different places and struggles, we decided to start taking care of ourselves and building the future we wanted together.
Some from the arts, others from sports, from schools and hospitals. Some of us had to work from a beautiful and complex field in equal parts: that of institutions.
We arrived at the governments and the same message always resonated in our minds: we want islands that take care of their people, that take care of their young people. We want to demonstrate that it is ALWAYS possible for people to be at the center, despite the traumatic experiences previously suffered with those who always found another priority to put before them. Whether it was the Spanish right, or the conservative nationalism that plundered the Canary Islands for almost 30 years.
This week, in which we celebrate International Youth Day (in the European Year of Youth), I think about the impulse we have given to the opportunities of young people, since we have the honor of developing policies from the General Directorate of Youth. Reaching many young people, with the will to reach more and more. And I smile thinking about the projects that I am most proud of because I see them grow, be an example for the future. Because they are starred, coordinated, thought by the youth, and the administration is a mere instrument to make it a reality. To make it possible.
Making youth policies is generating spaces for their real participation. It is to train our youth in values, in Human Rights, in environmental awareness. It is to fight to eradicate the denial of some young people regarding sexist violence. It is to let them have a real role in a democracy that has to be theirs. It is to listen to them and make politics with what you see and hear. Also with what you don't hear. And value their achievements (not only symbolically), as well as recognize the difficulties they have, different and similar at the same time, in the 8 islands, in the 88 municipalities, in each rural town, in each urban neighborhood or periphery.
And so we have a Canary Islands that has projects of young researchers and observers of cetaceans, who teach other young people to take care of our marine fauna and value our coast. So we have functionally diverse young people making pineapple in an urban ecological garden. And others making art with waste. Also racialized young people training young migrants who arrive in a small boat. Or LGTBIQ+ people attending to others who need advice, help, company. Or we have music therapy with rap for young people with judicial measures, an ecological farm for young women victims of gender violence and their children. And we generate the meeting of young people who live between dance, poetry, painting, drawing or theater.
They are the hope of the Canary Islands: young people who undertake, commit to their society, who carry the Sustainable Development Goals as a flag and point the way to those who forget them too easily (what would our natural environments be today without the courage of our youth, who never stand aside!). We have athletes and activists being referents: our people from here being a beacon for our young people, who do not need to look for models outside because their own land generates them and, after a long time, begins to promote them. We have floral architects, an expert in community health or tactical urban planners nearby. Biologists and beekeepers. Founders of associations that want to change things, specialists in marketing, networks and "influencers".
We have the best of computer science, video games, and technological development. And we have singers, film directors and writers recognized internationally who create from the ultraperiphery. Canary talent in abundance that only needs an opportunity to shine. I guess I'm lucky to see them very closely, but today it's up to me to encourage them, from the heart, to look at our young people and make it a little, just a little, easier for them.
These days was the oath of Francia Márquez as the new vice president of Colombia. She swore by her ancestors and ancestors and by the people. And I thought of her phrase as the objective of that youth that is the hope of the archipelago. We are the hope of the Canary Islands and we will continue to be, "until dignity becomes a habit".
Laura Fuentes, General Director of Youth of the Government of the Canary Islands.