14.12.09

High Priority : Youth Centers Needed !


Teens and young adults today seem not to know anything about survival. 
Going to school alone doesn't seem to be sufficient any more. And what use is all the learning if it doesn't prepare you to find your own way about society without bungling things up.
It is a big developmental flaw in a human being to not be able to operate within society without brushing people the wrong side. I know some young people today play it down as 'brag-ado'. But it's not. It's a sign of poor development. 
We were lucky to have grown up in an era when civic studies was still taught in schools and church work was genuine. And school teachers seemed to take interest in the child.
Today, most young people are mis-guided and seem to lack the ability to have a valid positive mindset needed to face life. Life skills, basic home skills, career readiness, financial budgeting and intelligence, civic awareness and fairness to all in their dealings seem to be missing in most of today's young.
Oh, some of the churches hold annual youth seminars. But being a pastor does not necessarily mean you know how to mold young lives. They often leave the church seminars with the notion that they can stampede everybody through life. And of course, young people don't know where to draw the line. So they live with a philosophy as if everybody else should vacate the planet for them.
My country, Nigeria, is in dire need of youth centers. Youth centers run by people trained in the psychology of the youth, people who know what is expected of a well-developed social being and are able to groom young people to imbibe them.
Setting up sports clubs is not the answer, for at the end of the day these young people still have to go into the world to confront what they have been running away from. Often the encounter is usually messy.
The church, or other religious bodies at that, is also not the answer in themselves. Whereas youth centers may spring up through churches, schools and community resources and referrals, religion itself has become grossly manipulative these days, to say the least, and young people can see through it all. They only play along to play nice. They know this thing has to be more structured, more organized, more methodical, more explicable.
To save tomorrow's people it should be considered setting up youth centers in the far reaches of our country.