DPR Speaker: Young People Face Complex Challenges

Manado (ANTARA) – Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) Speaker Puan Maharani said young people today face quite complex challenges.

“The journey of church youth in becoming a light amid the lives of the people is certainly not easy. Every era has its own challenges, and every generation faces a different historical test,” Puan said at the National Consultation of Church Youth at the auditorium of the Manado State Christian Institute in North Sulawesi on Friday.

While young people during the struggle for independence faced colonial rule and restrictions on freedom, she said, today’s generation faces challenges that are no less complex.

Puan listed those challenges as very rapid technological progress, economic competition, unequal opportunities, the environmental crisis, disinformation and a tendency for social solidarity to weaken.

She said the National Consultation of Church Youth was not only a forum for exchanging ideas, strengthening fellowship and drawing up organisational programmes. More than that, it was an opportunity to reaffirm the direction of church youth’s service in the life of the nation and state.

“If church youth want to be a light, that light must be present among the people,” Puan said.

She said that light should not shine only in meeting rooms or during organisational activities. It should reach places where people face hardship, uncertainty and injustice.

“From this spirit, church youth programmes need to be formulated. They should be grounded in real problems that need to be addressed, bring about change and deliver benefits felt by young people and the wider community,” she said.

Meanwhile, Elder Rio Dondokambey, chairman of the organising committee for the 2026 National Consultation of the Youth of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI), said the consultation aimed to build a shared understanding among the synods, through programmes and internal and external recommendations.

“The direction of church youth for the coming year will be decided today through discussion together,” he said.

On the subject of disasters, Rio said church youth should think ahead whether or not a disaster occurs, particularly given other situations that require follow-up and a clear response from the movement.

“Wherever Christian young people are placed and whatever work they do, they should uphold their integrity as Christian youth, because we have been taught the teachings of Jesus Christ. Whatever our work, we must do it with integrity,” he said.