History, all over the world, has records of irreparable psychological harms in persons and populations, and in many cases by generations, due to unprecendented serious events, periods of strong societal pressures and tensions, prolonged pain of systemic policy-based consequents, irreversible epidemics, events of violence and wars, and many others.
Today, demoralization ranks in similar significance in our society, affecting a whole generation psychologically. By demoralization, to clarify, experts refer to the psychological distress and feeling of intense helplessness, despair and helplessness due to existential experiences which eventually result in profound loss of hope, confidence, and even the sense of purpose and meaning in life.
In the case of Tanzania, being a nation of young people, with over 70 per cent aging 35 and below, young people ough to be considered, in the real meaning of the word, as a potential for growth. The country has never had in its history, numbers of educated young people as now. Many of these young people are trained in different professions and are ready to work if conditions are friendlier and professionals are valued for the contribution they make to the society.
It is baffling to see that we have schools that have no enough teachers, and hospitals that have needs much above the capacity of the practicioners, while we also have unemployed professionals for years and years, who for years do not make other life decisions, as they hang on the hope of being employed in the sectors of their trainings one day. The difficulty with jobs is a contributing fctor to the widespread demoralization. It is already a problem that is leading to many other problems, and if care is not taken, we are bound to seeing a collapse of generations and an irreparable transformation in the state of social order.
Young age comes with curiosity and enthusiasm to do new things, to discover, to learn, to explore. It is a matter of concern, and should be taken as such, when young people live in despair and lose meaning in life in their young age.
On the economics, many young people today are surviving in an informal economy without stability or any assurances for the future, have no savings, no insurance, and yet surrounded by responsibilities, risks, and social pressures to comform to the generations ahead, such as to get married, etc. How can one be psychologically healthy when all the possibilities for upward mobility are blocked, and when policies are seen to be mere words for the most part?
It is important to have proportionality between the experts produced and those absorbed into the system to supply for the needed services and keep the overall service delivery efficiency graph rising. It is also beyond sensibleness to have a surplus of trained manpower amidst situations of lack of the services.
Moreover, the system does not take in new people to fill in the gaps left by retirees, as some of the retirees are recycled back into the system, especially on top positions, making the internal vertical mobility difficult.
With the existing gap in population potentialities we cannot afford allowing more and more young people to lose hope and give up in life. Young people of today are already experiencing difficulties in many areas as they are growing up in times of change, most of it rapid than they can process both socio-politically and in global dynamics of societal integration, communication, technology, and global peace.
The first step is to acknowledge the fact that our young people are losing it. There are more suicides. There are more and more young people who choose to not have life long relatioships or marriage. Many young people develop addictions to substances, to social media, etc. just to cope with the difficulties surrounding them. There are also uncountable young people who turn to unlawful and unethical ways to survive, using the available means of communication, etc; they choose to even sell their dignity just to survive.
Without mincing words, addressing this needs a miraculous top down systemic execution of workable policies that reflect the true vision of who and where we are as a nation, not the vision of the nation presented in press releases which do not reflect the reality on grounds.
If our systems become source of young people breaking down because of false promises, bureaucracy, endless and disappointing processes, and other persistent systemic discomforts, we can see the future with many young people who will no longer be patriotic because they don’t feel they are loved and appreciated in their own country. It is nearly impossible to progress when the young have been demoralized such that they have no love or passion for their country. Our sytems can be made better if those in leadership have genuine resolves to do so for the good of all.
