St Joseph's students: Young people must harness skill of self-reliance

Port Moresby: Young people must harness the skill of being self-reliant at a young age so that they grow up to be independent members of society.

This was the powerful message given by five dynamic grade 12 students from St Joseph’s International Catholic College during the Chatroom program on Wednesday May 25 as they discussed the topic ‘Importance of self-reliance for students and youths.’

Opening the discussion was Chioma Kalu who defined self-reliance as the reliance on one’s own powers and resources rather than those of others.

Miss Kalu said self-reliance gives you the ability to solve problems and make decisions on your own. She also said that it allows you to be independent in terms of providing for yourself without any external help and involves self-acceptance and, self-knowledge and self-compassion.

“As youths, we must take control of our own destiny and realize that we can only bring ourselves to complete our desired goals and aims and self-reliance helps us to depend less on our parents”, she said.

Speaking on the importance of depending on one’s own self and how young people can learn to trust themselves more was Sophia Pelayo.

“As young people, in order to become self-reliant, we must accept the fact that we know ourselves best and what we want in life all comes down to us and how we work towards achieving our goals”, said Miss Pelayo.

Highlighting the benefits of self-reliance and disadvantages of being too self-reliant was Salome Kiap.

She stressed that self-reliance is an important attitude that should be taught to young people because it teaches them to become more independent and have self-confidence in their decisions. She urged all parents to teach their children the need to become more independent.

Miss Kiap also warned that despite self-reliance being an important skill in one’s life, it can also be a bad thing as it can boost one’s ego making them prideful and unwilling to let others help or give advice to them

Giving the biblical perspective of self-reliance, Miss Mona Reid said that the idea that usually comes to mind when young people hear the term self-reliance is ‘me, myself and I’ but that doesn’t mean we can’t draw strength from God.

Quoting the scripture in Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, she encouraged everyone to draw inspiration from God and work towards their dreams in life.

Wrapping up the discussion was Kerenga Koleala, who made a powerful statement saying that self-reliance is needed for a thriving and independent society.

He called on the youths to take control of their own lives and not let other people make decisions for them. He also called on the parents to guide and teach their children at a young to make the right decisions so that they build their self-confidence and become goal-oriented as they grow older.

Mr. Koleala also called on the government to make the right decisions so that our country becomes more self-reliant and not always rely on aid and loans from other countries.

Chatroom for June 1st will have the students from Don Bosco Technical School as they discuss the topic of the importance of teamwork.