BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
TEMOTU Province youth representative, Sharon Inone’s Temotu 40th Second Appointed Day speech not only truly befitted the momentous occasion but also brought to the front the fact about the challenges, quest, and sacrifices faced by Temotu as a province over the past decades.
Speaking on Saturday 10, June, Sharon pointed out the fact that despite all social, economic, and development obstacles, Temotuans must look beyond its name as a province.
She added that her vision for Temotu for the next decade is a foundation for future growth.
“My vision for Temotu province is to invest in our youths.
“I want to see more opportunities, and more young people in Temotu province to rise and take on the future challenges; after all, we must say no to corruption to take the province forward and into the future.
“Today if you look at our youth population, most of them, they have their passports ready to leave this nation and to go work overseas. Doesn’t it freak you out?
“After all, as a province, our respective Constituencies of Pele, Nende, and VATUD need to start working together by investing in our youths if we want to develop a modernize and model province in the Solomon Islands.
“We need to work together in this decade to see our plans coming forward and to see youths, women included in our development plans,’’ Sharon said.
Sharon underlined some of the biggest challenges when she pointed out: “I received a message from my small brother and he told me that he is going over to Australia for seasonal work for the next four years. I was excited but I was also scared. We are losing the human resources of this country. Because we are not able to provide resources that they can remain in our province and country.”
She further added, “We have a lot of unemployed young people; 70% of the population in the country are made up of youths, yet we spend limited resources investing in our young people and it’s a major issue. If you want to know the future of the country or province, you look at its youth population and where are they going.”
She argued that these young people can stay back and invest in our province and country.
“If we have to see the sustainable development goals, the national youth policy and the strategy stripping down to the provincial and community level. We need to build the youth population and we need to invest in them.
“Youths are the ticking time bomb of our nation and if we invest in them they will explore positive development and then we will see rural development in our province.
“If we don’t my friends, we will keep losing them to other countries that have the resources in place to provide for these young people.
“This modern, and model Temotu province in the next decade needs collaborative efforts from everyone, children, mothers, fathers, and business people everybody needs to collaborate to change the narrative.
“We were to change the narrative. We were to get Australian youth to come and work in Temotu province but how? How do we do that? We need to develop our Agriculture sector we need to tap into more that is in Temotu. There is no Temotu with all the more and the day we will come to this truth,’’ she said.
She said that one-day Temotuans will wake up to this truth where Temotu will progress.
“And today to achieve this, what do we do, do we wait for the next Member of Parliament (MP) in our three constituencies to achieve this for us, to develop Temotu into a modernized model province, No! Each one of us here today you play a part you provide a service. Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great,’’ she said.
“It’s every one of us that is standing here today you provide a service, whatever little you come with put it on the table, we work together, collaborate, network, we don’t compete against each other, to see Temotu progressing,” she said.
