The Secretary General of World Assembly of Youth (WAY) talks about youth unemployment in Spain and the world, and explains the reasons that have prompted to join Pegasus and how is going to collaborate with it.

-It is the first time you made an alliance with a Spanish company; in fact we have no member body to represent us at the World Assembly of Youth. What has prompted you to join the Pegasus project?
When I read about Pegasus and discovered their passion to find a solution for youth employment, I immediately became interested in Pegasus. The objective of Pegasus which says that “Pegasus is the means that will help us and inspire us to find a wise solution that takes the inhabitants of planet Earth to find a permanent solution to the scourge of youth unemployment” is in line with what the World Assembly of Youth is trying to achieve when it comes to youth employment. The fact that Pegasus and the World Assembly of Youth have similar passion in solving youth employment issues is the main reason why I decided to join Pegasus project.

-How will the World Assembly of Youth collaborate with the project?
The World Assembly of Youth takes keen interest in helping the youth and tackling youth employment issues. Now seeing that Pegasus has the same passion in solving youth employment issues I think we can collaborate in a lot of ways. For example, WAY can grant Pegasus access to research, reports, declarations etc. conducted by WAY on youth employment. In addition, WAY’s third goal for the Fourth Millennium Plan of Action (2015-2019) is to promote sustainable economic growth and employment, and we plan to decrease by 15% the unemployment rates among youth globally. We can share our strategy on how we plan to achieve these goals with Pegasus.

-Youth employment is one of the most important issues on the agenda of the World Assembly of Youth, a problem that stopped exclusively affecting to developing countries, to leave out millions of young people in developed countries. What are WAY proposals for solutions to this problem?
• Encourage the international community to promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, apprenticeship, creativity and innovation.
• Promote labour rights and safe and secure working environments of all workers, including refugees, migrants, minorities, people with disabilities, and those in precarious employment.
• Encourage the youth to become entrepreneurs. This is the reason why the World Assembly of Youth organized Melaka International Youth Dialogue in 2011 with the theme: Shaping the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs. The youth convened from around the world and discussed on this issues and at the end came out with a declaration that were later sent to National Youth councils and governments as recommendations to be included into their policies. When the youth become entrepreneurs it goes a long way to solve the youth employment issues.

-In poor countries, there are millions of young workers unable to leave the cycle of exclusion and insecurity, while in rich countries a large proportion of young workers seem doomed to increasingly unstable and poorly paid jobs. Furthermore, it seems global wealth is not balanced. Have we reached the exhaustion of our economic system?
Globally, the rich becomes richer while the poor stay poor. The global wealth is never balanced and we have not yet reached the exhaustion of our economic system we lack proper management and strategies.

-How to explain that young people are the recipients of the messages consumption, including consumption of training and education, while access to the labor market is growing late and informal?
The future of the countries lies on young people because they are the leaders of tomorrow or as we say at World Assembly of Youth, Youth are the leaders of today . Young people are a fundamental asset of our economies and societies. To fully exploit the potential of young people, they need to be productively employed and integrated into Society.

-In Spain we have youth unemployment rate about 56%, a figure that has continued to rise since the beginning of the crisis in 2007. In which part are failing employment policies?
Employment policy is failing on the Capitalism because it requires growth. A system that requires growth cannot last forever on a planet that is defined by ecological and social limits. It is therefore fundamentally unsustainable sooner or later it will run up against those limits and the system will stop functioning. Almost one in four young people in the labour force are unemployed and a high number of people with jobs are still in poverty. Long-term unemployment has become structural, as more than half of those unemployed have been in this situation for more than a year.

-Many young people see their unemployment as a personal failure, disappointment, helplessness and refusal to institutions is installed on them.How to recover the optimism and hope?
• First, the youth must adopt the right mindset, they need to think positively.
• Creativity and entrepreneurship spirit: The youth need to be creative and at the same time develop the entrepreneurship spirit. When you become creative or become an entrepreneur you will attract investors and when people invest in you it will restore your hope and optimism.
• No condition is permanent: The day the youth realised that their problem and condition is not permanent is the time their hope and optimism will be restored.
• Support from the global community: The global community need to support the youth for example the government can provide the start-up capital for youth who want to start their own business. The global community can create competitions where the winners will be given loans or capital to start up their business. The global community can also invest in the youth and in their business. This will go a long way to restore and recover their optimism and hope.