Mentor the youth to give them hope
What you need to know:
- Rural communities focused on small-scale farming the traditional way have to contend with diminishing land that may not provide gainful employment to the burgeoning youth numbers or feed families, let alone produce surpluses for the market.
- In my many years as a high school teacher and principal, I have firsthand memories of young people whose lives were transformed simply because they were properly mentored. Also, I know of hundreds of promising ones who fell into the wrong company and got their lives badly ruined.
- And in this regard, though parents, faith leaders and teachers are best placed to champion the reversal of the negative trends our young people are sucked into, not much commitment has been invested in mentorship at home, places of worship and schools.
Every passing day, the world of young people in our part of the world, be it in rural areas or urban centres, witnesses persistent shrinking of opportunities.
Rural communities focused on small-scale farming the traditional way have to contend with diminishing land that may not provide gainful employment to the burgeoning youth numbers or feed families, let alone produce surpluses for the market.
Meanwhile, in cities and towns, the youth are gradually being sucked into waves of truancy and crime fuelled by idleness, unemployment and attendant hopelessness.
The truth is, we can neither increase arable land nor create gainful employment opportunities for our youth overnight. A master plan based on innovativeness, value addition and mass manufacturing is required to turn the tide. As we await such a blueprint to be put in place, life has to continue and despair and hopelessness among the young must be addressed.
The first port of call should focus on unhooking our young persons from drug and alcohol abuse. The second should reorienting them from mindsets that predispose them to hopelessness and despondency.
In my many years as a high school teacher and principal, I have firsthand memories of young people whose lives were transformed simply because they were properly mentored. Also, I know of hundreds of promising ones who fell into the wrong company and got their lives badly ruined.
Youthfulness comes with highly impressionable minds. During this inevitable stage in life, shaping of character is crucial. The best time to ensure the right attitudes and values are imparted is when they are still in their childhood. The work of mentoring young persons should continue throughout teenage and thereafter.
In this day and age of unfettered Internet access, vile and mind-poisoning content is easily available to young people. What many of them do not know is that a lot of the content they devour and share every day is itself hyped and that most of it does not occur in real life.
Mentorship, apparently is not just spelling out dos and don’ts to the youth. The process of mentorship is much more complex than that. It is when the mentor is fully aware of the dynamics of social change and when he or she fully appreciates the power of connecting hindsight and insight into foresight that he or she can prepare the minds of young people for a prosperous future.
Changing the fortunes, prospects and attitudes of our youth calls for commitment. And in this regard, though parents, faith leaders and teachers are best placed to champion the reversal of the negative trends our young people are sucked into, not much commitment has been invested in mentorship at home, places of worship and schools.
The author is a retired career educationist and currently the chairman of Ustawi Family Care, a Kirinyaga County-based NGO that mentors young persons.
