SERDANG, April 6 — Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh said today that her ministry is planning to bring back the Rakan Muda youth programme that was popular during its run in the 1990s.
She said the ministry plans for the return this year as part of its efforts to empower the youths and teach the community leadership skills.
“Rakan Muda is now in a state of planning for its execution, when it's ready we're going to launch it,” she said when met at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) here.
Rakan Muda was a youth empowerment movement that was launched in 1994 and was part of former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's Vision 2020 programme that he hoped would develop strong youth equipped for the challenges of the 21st century.
Teenagers who wished to enrol in Rakan Muda can choose from an myriad of activities from field sports, swimming or even body building to martial arts like silat, taekwondo and karate.
It also offered environmental and nature activities like visiting and learning about historic places in Malaysia, frequenting the rural areas to raise awareness of the struggles poor people faced as well as learning about how to preserve nature.
Rakan Muda also offered advice on how you can start a business and be an entrepreneur as well as offer deep sea diving and outdoor camping excursions.
Rakan Muda began to slow down around 2000 due to a lack of interest, poor promotional activities and lack of government support. Then in 2015 former sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin mooted bringing it back but that never materialised.
Hannah said that apart from wanting to bring it back this year with a better connectivity between ministries they also want to enhance its portfolio and anything new they come up with will be put under the Rakan Muda banner as well.
"We're going to work with the Ministry of Higher Education -- and I know they have their own programmes too -- and bring back Rakan Muda. All other programmes that we want will be parked under Rakan Muda so there is greater synergy and greater coordination.
"Rakan Muda was very well known during my time, we were like the first batch in the 1990's and now we're all parents with teenagers. If we bring Rakan Muda back you'll reach out across generations. The parents will believe in Rakan Muda and make sure their kids sign up for Rakan Muda," she added.
