Youth: Students in Thimphu now will get a chance to participate in YouTurn, an event aimed to inspire young people through motivational talk sessions by eminent speakers.

Organised by the Department of Youth and Sports (DYS) with the education ministry, the event began at the DYS hall yesterday. Education minister Norbu Wangchuk attended the event.

The programme will be held on the last Friday of every month.

Organiser of the event said that with rising youth issues in the society such as drug abuse, substance abuse, suicides, gang violence and other juvenile delinquencies, it is important to constantly interact with young people and to show them the positive side of life so that they can stay away from these social ills and grow up to become socially responsible citizens.

The event will serve as an ideal platform for young people to interact with the speakers and learn about the values of life.

For the first YouTurn event, Gasa’s National Council representative Sangay Khandu and blogger Passang Tshering spoke on the theme ‘Being Bhutanese’ to the students that attended the event.

Sangay Khandu shared the comments that he received when he asked his friends on Facebook about what does it mean to be a Bhutanese, to which some stressed on having a strong personal integrity, the value of freedom that Bhutanese enjoy today to preservation of culture, environment to being a Buddhist, among others.

Sangay Khandu emphasised on the Bhutanese values such as tha damtsi and ley judrey, respect for elders and the young, values of family, mindful living, time use, providing skilled services that the society needs, growing one’s own food, a strong sense of voluntarism and giving back to the society.

“Such values affect our acts, which in turn affects our future. It’s important that the youth today must have the right Bhutanese values because what values they are inculcated will have a significant impact on the next generation,” Sangay Khandu said. “We are blessed to have enlightened figures as our Kings.”

Sangay Khandu ended his talk by giving snippets of advices such as there can be no achievement without hard work and we should never lose our Bhutanese values.

Passang Tshering talked about his ordinary life and how having an ordinary life is enough to bring a change in one’s society.

Through his personal story, Passang Tshering highlighted the importance of saving money, helping one’s parents, importance of reading and writing, how to overcome challenges and issues during adolescent life and how important it is to give back to the society by helping as many people as one can.

“I hope through my story, I can connect with the students and help them understand that having an ordinary life is enough but it depends on an individual to bring the needed change,” Passang Tshering said.

Thinley Zangmo

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