THE ROLE OF YOUTHS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
ABSTRACT
This study is a determination of the level of participation of youth in community development in Oredo Local Government Area. The main objectives of the study were to examine the extent to which the youth have and can still contribute their strength meaningfully to the development of their communities. Also the study tried to find out the modalities of mobilizing the youths to take part actively in community self-help.Philosophy which was helped to reduce the high rate of youth’s migration to
urban areas for search of social amenities. The work will evaluate the youth contributions so far towards the
development of this area. The hypotheses tested includes the following: that youth efforts in community development
projects are appreciated by other members of the community, that the major factor militating against youth
participation is land dispute. Different method of data collection was adopted to obtain information from the public.
Questionnaire was designed and distributed to different respondents. The questionnaires involved 100 respondents,
the entire hypothesis were accepted and analyzed. Finding of these tested hypotheses could be seen in chapter four
of this research work. Based on these findings, suggestions aimed at eliminating these inherent problems have been
advanced in chapter five of this research work. Recommendations were made in the following directions: that youth
should be told how the community funds are being controlled or expended, that youths should be given free hands of
initiate new projects, to supplement the effort of formal education system through training and impacting self-reliance
skills that can make the youth more job creating than seeking, that youths should act in the various capacities as
agents. They should be instrumental to most enlightenment campaigns in the rural areas. That it is necessary to reeducate the youth on the important impact they owe their community in development activities. By so doing, they
serve as channels for introduction of modern ways of living and doing things.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The aim of rural development is to get rid of poverty. Youth involvement in community development programme has
been as long as man’s existence. Their contribution towards community development in a given area like Oredo Local
Government has much to be desired. It is generally accepted in most developing countries like Nigeria, that
government alone cannot develop all the rural communities as at when due. Apart from leadership, there are other
things that are against the attainment of a meaningful, progressive and just society that we have been longing for but
failed to respond decisively. Although these are few books that cover the role of youth in community development or
nation building. This study will treat all aspects of the topic as evidence to show whether or not youths played
effective contributive role in the development of rural areas Oredo Local Government is not an exception, this is
because they need the help or support of the youths to assist the nation in achieving self sufficiency in areas like food
production and the realization of structural transformation of the Agricultural sector (Doorbus, 2001).
It is a common thing that “youths are the leaders of tomorrow”, it could therefore be seen that the contributions of
youths to rural development is very important, hence people look up to the youths for active leadership, self reliance,
honesty, selfless service, industrial knowledge, patriotism and discipline. Generally, youths constitute about of the active population, by youth we mean those young active and powerful or dynamic people in the society
under the ages of forty. They have some qualities, which includes responsibility to challenges (Oadire, 2010).
The community does show that government alone cannot provide all the development needed by themselves,, as a
result the communities are to mobilize themselves by using the resources at their disposal to provide amenities
through self-help and popular participation; we cannot over emphasize the effect of youth class or cooperative
organization in carrying out such a task, no wonder BEJA says “there is hope that our country will still grow and
survive into a great nation despite the ills of our times and that hope is in the youths”.
The researcher will attempt to state the energetic nature of youth class in Oredo Local Government. The hope of the
rural communities is to have access to the provision of the basic social amenities. But the way of achieving this hope
cannot be guaranteed by the government alone, but through the help or contribution of the rural developers,
moreover no community should see rural development as the sole responsibility of the community development
officers, in order not to experience law level development, unemployment, starvation and poor health care,
government can no longer or finds it difficult to satisfy all these needs due to the enormity of the task on her, hence
from time immemorial, youths have been assisting the elders in the development of their areas. Their participation is very essential and this further boosts national development.
THE ROLE OF YOUTHS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT