World Youth Day – August 12
Youth Present, Voices that Transform

By Elio Villaseñor

“Youth is not a stage of waiting,
 it is a moment of invention”

— Paulo Freire

We live in a context that attempts to impose the idea that there is only one valid voice and one path to success.

This dominant narrative promotes obedience, the repetition of rigid models, and the pursuit of immediate results with the least possible effort.

However, this vision does not respond to the complexity or the true needs of this generation.

Reality demands something different: an attitude that dares to innovate, question, and construct its own responses, both individually and collectively.

For young people, it's not about settling into their comfort zone, but rather about activating their capacity for struggle, creativity, and organization to face the challenges of the present with dignity.

In this sense, it is essential to reject the idea that "youth is the future" if they are not also recognized as protagonists of the present.

It's not enough to be recipients of empty speeches or symbolic handouts; what's needed are real conditions to develop life plans, participate in decisions that affect them, and transform their communities.

Nor is it possible to take a passive stance in the face of a rapidly changing world.

The technological revolution, the climate crisis, forced displacement, inequality, and precarious employment are urgently challenging this generation.

Today, more than ever, we need to break with limiting narratives, reject passivity, and take an active role in social transformation.

Not as a future promise, but as a present and necessary force.

International Youth Day: an opportunity, not a symbol

In this context, International Youth Day, celebrated every August 12, should not be reduced to a symbolic gesture.

It is an opportunity to highlight the real demands, capabilities, and contributions of young people.

Rather than decorative figures in speeches, they must be key players in decision-making and direct beneficiaries of the structural changes that society requires.

Youth who act, not wait

Faced with the challenges of the present, it is not enough to simply adapt: young people must be active players in building new realities.

Being young today is not a pause: it is a starting point.

Turning demands into action, creativity into solutions, and organization into concrete transformation is part of this generation's calling.

These young people are invited to embrace the dilemmas of their time not as barriers, but as stimuli to imagine, interconnect knowledge, and co-create new ways of inhabiting the world.

It's not just about surviving, but about building with meaning, autonomy, and hope.

The challenge—and also the opportunity—is to shine a light amidst uncertainty, turn outrage into action, and resolutely assume the role of protagonists in their own demands.

The present also belongs to them.

And it is from here, from this now, that a more just, inclusive, and deeply human future can begin to be forged.