Arusha — Miss Annamaria Levi is not your average woman. At the age of twenty seven she has been working for Oikos East Africa in an executive position as a financial administrator for two years. She is an example of a female idol in Arusha. Oikos East Africa is a conservation and development organization.

Annamaria has been a key advisor to her organization's project managers on financial matters. The young executive has been responsible for setting up a practical accounting system for her organization. She has been preparing financial reports for uncompromising institutions that finance Oikos development projects. Her professional contribution has enabled Oikos to become efficient and dynamic in financial and project management. It is a message to other organizations to consider employing youths and above all females in executive positions.

It can be argued that the elderly professionals are better executives because they can make decisions based on their long experiences. But, that is just a framework of reasoning.

An alternative framework of reasoning is that development and indeed life itself is about management of changing situations over time. Said differently, the old mostly represent situations of the past while the youths represent better the present and the future if judged by the knowledge, skills and attitudes which they posses.

Based on knowledge, youths rather than the elderly are better prepared to make executive decisions in Tanzania. They are better prepared since their reference for action is the current Tanzania that exists as a capitalist rather than the previous socialist state. The country acquired the capitalist orientation in 1992 under the IMF's banner of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).

Meanwhile, the elderly executives struggle to abandon their socialist background in favour of the SAP. Many apply their socialist solutions to solve capitalist problems. Clearly, it does not work. It will never work. It happens at the expense of community lives in the country.

Based on skills, the youths in Tanzania do computers as a basic subject because development planners realize that little can be done now without computers. Admittedly, many schools in Tanzania do not impart computer skills because they lack relevant infrastructures like electricity. But computer studies are part of the national syllabus.

On the contrary, many of the elderly who studied as recently as late seventies or early eighties did not see a computer at the time, let alone to touch one. It is the case even for people who studied at reputable universities in a high tech country like USA.

The worse thing is that the elderly generally resist learning how to operate new technologies like computers. It is a common syndrome known as "technology fright".

As a result, elderly executives particularly those who work for government agencies and institutions in Tanzania delay development of the country substantially because they drag their feet to computerize operation systems for the organizations which they manage. Needless to mention, young executives would install computers on day one of their appointments to the posts because computers are simply basic management tools for any organization.

In terms of attitudes, reference is made to the saying, "you can not teach old dogs new tricks." It implies in this case that the elderly executives are unable to adapt adequately to the changing situations in the country. It is a point for consideration.

By the way, Annamaria joined Oikos as a volunteer in 2008. It reminds government and members of the civil society to formalize volunteer services in the form of organizations for skilled youths. Employers can then contact the organizations for the purpose of attaching the youths to professional organizations. Such move might open up opportunities for the many unemployed skilled youths. Many skilled youths in Arusha are willing to work as volunteers rather than to idle at home or travel aimlessly.

As a human being, Annamaria is compassionate. She sponsors several children from poor families in South America to go to school. She once thought of assisting to rescue a miserably looking lunatic from a ditch where he was sitting. But a friend advised her not to be involved. It was before a lunatic in Arusha assaulted and killed a university student.

Annamaria recently wept to react to a situation where she felt that medical practitioners in town cause sufferings and deaths in some hospitals in town because they are incompetent, negligent or unethical. Let her tears serve as an appeal for medical practitioners to review their treatment and caring practices. The Doctors and Nurses Associations might be interested to take lead to address the public concern. A possible framework for the review is to value health as a basic human right.

Meanwhile, Annamaria will soon be an idol in Nairobi rather than Arusha. She will relocate to Nairobi at the end of the month to take up a programming position with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Her farewell message to colleagues reads, "At this moment, I find it hard to express in a rational way how I feel, because despite being excited to start a new job not too far from Arusha, I still cannot realize that I am leaving. The two years I have been working for Oikos have been much more than just work for me: surely it has been a great professional challenge and it has been a very intense human and personal experience.

There will be plenty of time for farewells and hugs in the next days, but I take this opportunity to thank you all for sharing so much with me and for the friendship that I am sure will last".