News is circulating on social media and other portal news networks in which one Cherno Sulayman Jallow had his hand cut off with a machete during a street fight with one Azziz Ndow in London Corner. The news is not only terrifying but worrisome.
Authorities should consider the plight of youth and create avenues to positively engage them to be productive citizens and not liabilities. Ignoring them or leaving them to loiter around unproductively without harnessing their potentials in national development would surely have dire consequences. To better understand how to move the youths forward towards national development, there must be a careful examination of rationale for expanding the youths frontier for active participation in national development.
Travelling through the streets of Serre Kunda and most urban centres and seeing how some of our youths loiter around hopelessly, leaves much to be desired.
It is true that problems associated with unemployment are many, which includes increase in the crime rate, hard drug abuse, frustration, dependency, migration and the list goes.
But how do we empower our youth and take them from their street ghettoes? We should have in mind that the development of nations is fully dependent on the abilities of youths. The power of youths must be positively utilised in all areas like health, education, technology, business, trade, etc. and integrated with moral value education to spread peace and welfare throughout the country.
Certainly, the above mentioned problems would be a thing of the past when the young of the population are provided with gainful employment. It may be true that no nation can provide employment for all its citizens.
But let’s create or initiate avenues that would have a direct bearing on empowering their welfare. This, we believe calls for multi-faceted approach. This makes the work of public – private partnership crucial. When youths are empowered or recruited into skills training ventures, the country will certainly get rid of violent crime rate and illicit drug abuse.
“The devil they say finds work for idle hands.”
“Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him, to his own stupidity, or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.”
Robert Baden-Powell