Youth of Today

Youth of Today.

 

A large part of the youth of today think tomorrow will be the same as yesterday.

A future is something they find hard to see or believe, it's a poor dark and troubled world in which they live.

So much to say and contribute, but no one to listen, education and parents in skills completely gone missing.

Left to raise themselves in unruly neighbourhoods, trying to survive in the gang-controlled streets the best they could.

No sense of belonging and no family who cares, becoming gang members because they are the ones that are there.

Wanting and needing to be part of something positive yet surrounded by rundown poverty and negativity, abandoned by Society and ignored by government policy.

It's a one-way street they are all travelling down, with the pent-up anger they think they can bring change around.

Acquiring the skills that qualify them for a prison cell, inside they already know it will not end well.

The compulsion to rise and storm our streets, following directions on the Internet and the hatred it breeds.

Armed to the teeth with bricks, poles, machetes and knives, no respect for anything not even their own lives.

This is a negative generation we have all created, pushing the issues under the carpet never letting them be debated.

We must sit, talk and listen so we can make it better for the youth that follow on, give them a sense of self-worth, make them feel like they belong.

Rebuild relationships, regain control of communities, regain the trust, otherwise in the future there will be another generation we have lost

Tobani September (2024).