By Tracey Khan

GIVING youth a platform to spread awareness and positivity is the focus of Sandra Tularam’s television show “Youths of Today” which is aired on NTN every Friday.

The television show motivates students, empowers entrepreneurs, helps young people to become creative, innovative and deals with psychological issues. It engages everyone to become positive change agents.

Sandra is heavily involved in community development projects as a peace ambassador and founder of the Youth and Women Empowerment Movement Guyana. She is always looking at ways to make a difference and impact the lives of the future generation more positively by stimulating their minds.

The show is validated by the numerous compliments on social media and verbal communication and Sandra believes that it can be continued for decades once there is viable support.

“It was once rated as one of the best programmes in those times. Earlier and presently it is the only such programme aired in Guyana,” she explained.

Sandra has a great passion to help young people. In her field of Psychology, she deals with a variety of cases including drugs/alcohol, rape and abuse.

In her philanthropic journey which has involved meeting scores of young people, she noted that “a lot of them are vulnerable, confused about their identity, do not know their true values and worth and many of them are putting too much of their energies into the world of entertainment.”

As a result, she decided to re-launch the “Youths of Today” programme in March 2017 on the National Television Network Cable 69/Channel 18. The programme previously went off the air in 2001.

Her biggest challenge is seeking sponsors to keep the show on the air and she is determined to do so. She is hoping that the business community will give her the help she needs to ensure quality programming stays on the air.

In addition to good reviews, young individuals coming on the show to share their life experiences and give guidance to other young individuals, feel very happy to be doing something good for the improvement of society.

So far on this unique show a number of young influential persons were featured, including Michael Bhopal, 2017 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate Regional (CSEC) Top Performer; Gabrielle Mohamed, Winner of the Walter Rodney Award for Creative Writing in Poetry; Lisa Punch, Miss World 2015 Talent Winner; Samantha Sheoprashad, Queen’s Young Leader 2017 Award recipient and other notable professionals.

Sandra stressed that the upliftment of youths cannot be done without the holistic help of the government, media, business community both local and international and society as a whole. She is inviting everyone to come on board and be a part of this inspiring show.

After interviewing so many youths over the years she believes, “the biggest problem young people are facing within today’s society [involve] psychological issues. For example, in my counselling capacity and the work I do with my NGO I have dealt with numerous young people who are suffering from profound depression, stress, anxiety, sleeping and eating problems, phobia and fear. They lack the motivation to do things and to understand their unique purpose on Earth,” she said.

She believes that young people need to qualify themselves professionally in areas such as Computer Science, Chemical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering in order to be ready for new interventions and development. “In addition, they need to develop their cognitive ability at such a standard that they can think out of the box. For instance, to think beyond conventional construction and areas in Science and Technology,” she said.

Sandra can be contacted via email: youthstvshow@gmal.com or on telephone 641-7286.