Online Reporter
Kuda Bwititi in QINGHAI, China
THE 9th China-Africa Youth Festival ended on Saturday with Zimbabwean youth leader Mr Shacky Timburwa saying the week-long convention was a historic continuation of solidarity and has sparked a new era of revolution.
Delivering closing remarks at the end of the festival at the Qinghai Minzu University, Mr Timburwa, who is the ZANU PF Member of Parliament for Chegutu West, called for youths to build a future of equality and innovation.
He said the festival was not merely a celebration but “a spark of revolution in the hearts of our youth”.
“I stand here not only as an individual, but as a representative of a generation that is determined to carry forward the torch of liberation lit by our forebears,” Mr Timburwa said.
He said when the flames of African liberation burned, it was in China that many African fighters trained.
“The revolution is not over. It has simply changed its battlegrounds. No longer do we fight with rifles in the bush. Today, we fight with ideas, with innovation, with cultural pride, with unity. We fight against poverty, against underdevelopment, against the chains of dependency.”
During the festival, the youths toured several industrial and tourist sites in Qinghai province, among them the Yellow River, which is one of the largest in the world, the UNESCO-recognised Kanbula Global Geopark and the Hainan Photovoltaic plant that has broken world records in producing green energy.
The tours by youths to Chinese manufacturing plants, Mr Timburwa said, “showed the limitless potential of human creativity” and a model for what a united and ambitious Africa could achieve.
“Our scope is limitless. If only we dare to innovate and unite.”
The festival brought together young voices from several African nations with their Chinese peers in Beijing and Qinghai.
Mr Timburwa described the interactions as reunions of “brothers and sisters”.
He urged attendees to leave with commitments to “innovation, entrepreneurship, cultural pride, Pan-African unity and to solidarity with China as a trusted friend”.
The China-Africa Youth Festival was initiated at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in South Africa in 2015.
It is held annually to deepen mutual understanding, promote skills development and enhance people-to-people exchanges between the world’s second-largest economy and African countries.
Online Reporter