At a Film show organized by the organization at Koforidua Zongo, politicians were urged to develop policies on youth development to involve them in decision making rather than use them only to perpetrate violence during elections.

Ms Christabel Afrane, Programmes Manager of the Youth Challenge International, a non-governmental organization (NGO) urged the politicians while speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA).

Afrane noted that politicians only remembered the youth when it was getting to elections since they were vibrant and energetic and asked the youth to ignore any politician who would not bring on board good policies aimed at improving their living conditions but would only “use them to do dirty jobs for him”.

Youth Development

Believe it or not, the youth of today face endless challenges in every path of the life. The fact that the role of youth is often neglected and members of the young society are the future as well as the present of the society clearly suggests that there is so much to be done to identify and address problems and needs of the youth.

It is really surprising to learn that what is labeled as future of the society is not even considered capable of taking its own decisions. Moreover, young members of the society have to face the brunt of cultural, socio-economic, and global decisions that don’t even consider them as living beings. If that was not all, a big majority of the youth population is fighting daily against poor hygiene, old-age laws, lack of sanitation and basic facilities, absence of education, abuse, etc. Despite tall claims of international epidemiological demographic changes and policy improvements, the concept of youth development has hardly seen any noteworthy measures and the role of youth has been left to that of the followers when they should have been groomed as decision makers of the future.

The list of atrocities does not do any favor to youth and health of the young members of the society has to struggle against acute and chronic illnesses that are compounded or induced by unemployment, poverty, uneven distribution of income, and economic hardship. The cumulative toll of living in an uneducated society, violence, drugs, abuse, and hardship is doing no good.

One of the biggest hurdles that has been in the road to youth development is the fact that most youth promotion agencies focus solely or heavily on health and forget that young minds of the society need equal rights and freedom to speech, privacy, relationships, and make decisions for themselves. In short, these agencies forget to deliver services, affection, trust, healthy behavior, equal opportunities, and skills in the safest and most supportive of an environment that is established on the protective factors of the community and family.

Unless the family and the community realize that the concept of youth development cannot move any further, for the betterment, in the lack of coordination and integration of multiple resources and intentions as well as mechanisms of the society are formulated and executed in such a way that the role of youth is specified and young members of the society are asked to take decisions and learn from them, there would no point in highlighting positive youth news across the media. The worst part is that present day mechanisms and thinking approach are too slow and rigid that they fail to or avoid recognizing the essential value of the intersectoral approach to understand the real needs of the youth.

The list does not end here–some government and other agencies have a habit of making unwarranted choices and decisions that are unfavorable to youth and it is high time that informed decisions are made to promote youth development like never before and stop blaming the youth for every bad incident in the world. It is time for the world to acknowledge the special concerns of youth and adolescents and provide them uninterrupted access to learning and its influence on health, life, well-being, functioning of society, etc. and let the world benefit from the participation of youth. Moreover, youth development programs should be evaluated at regular intervals to stay in line and ahead of the changing times and needs and there should be surveillance systems to ensure that balanced growth and development of young members of the society is not just talked on the papers, but happens in real.

On Monday, US authorities approved a new drug for treating the most common form of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma, which is rarely lethal but can spread if left untreated.

Erivedge (vismodegib) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration after an expedited review for drugs that offer the potential for major advances in treatment. It is made by Genentech, a US subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche and is the first of its kind for patients basal cell carcinoma has spread either locally or to other parts of the body, or metastasized.

“The drug is intended for use in patients with locally advanced basal cell cancer who are not candidates for surgery or radiation and for patients whose cancer has spread to other parts of the body,” said the FDA.

“Our understanding of molecular pathways involved in cancer, such as the Hedgehog pathway, has enabled the development of targeted drugs for specific diseases,” said Richard Pazdur, director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

“This approach is becoming more common and will potentially allow cancer drugs to be developed more quickly. This is important for patients who will have access to more effective therapies with potentially fewer side effects.”

A new study has suggested that babies born to poor mothers with pregnancy-related diabetes have an extra-high risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Gestational diabetes typically develops during the second or third trimester of pregnancy, particularly in women who are overweight before getting pregnancy, do not exercise, or eat an unhealthy diet.

“There seems to be more research going in the direction that… the brains of children with ADHD are different,” said Ginette Dionne, who has studied gestational diabetes and language development at Laval University in Quebec but wasn’t involved in the new study.

“Gestational diabetes may not be a specific cause (of ADHD), but may be one of the factors that affects brain development,” she added.

A new U.S. study has revealed that toddlers who have poor relationships with their moms are more likely to pack on extra pounds as they grow up.

The involved researchers found more than a quarter of those who scored lowest on mother-child relationship tests as toddlers went on to become obese at age 15.

“There is an overlap in the brain between the areas that govern stress and energy balance,” said Sarah E. Anderson, who worked on the new study and of the Ohio State University College of Public Health in Columbus. “This stress response could be related to obesity through appetite regulation.”