MANY from the younger segment of the country’s population have been making the news, especially for the past decade and for the wrong reasons.
Ranging from drunk driving that has caused multiple deaths; armed robberies, in which some of the victims were killed; the all too common act of domestic violence; substance abuse, and sexual crimes – all personifying what is often described as today’s youths.
As an important reminder, this transcends ethnic and social boundaries, as the numerous media reports so vividly illustrate. What is very troubling is that youths from as young as 12 years old are now behind bars, awaiting trial for murder, as exemplified by the shocking case of a female sibling, along with her older sister, charged for the death of their father, with at least two others, at Coldingen.

We are not social scientist experts; however, it is not difficult to trace this gradual degradation that have resulted in the frightening, and disappointing reality of many of today’s youths, armed with heavy calibre weapons, being the robbers and killers, taking the place of their once much older adult type. Years of bad governance, evaporation of societal morals and dishonesty supplanted hard work; becoming the pathway for material gain.
All this would have taken place against the background of the flourishing of organised crime which resulted in death squads, and dead bodies. It is only practical that this social descent with all of the psycho social consequences would someday have borne the bitter fruits that are today a troubling and challenging element of our society.
We recall the advent of the Guyana National Service, and its visionary mission of producing a new kind of citizen that would have appreciated what it was to be Guyanese, be patriotic, and be of honest service to country.

Despite its many detractors–and there were many–it was an initiative that bore prodigious fruit; for what it did for the many thousands across ethnic lines who entered its many centres situated around Guyana’s vast geographical space.
So many were taught skills that later progressed to tertiary level institutions; enabled entrepreneurial endeavours; and pointed the way to self-discovery of talents which became manifest in their later lives, and put to service of country. Many of those beneficiaries of National Service’s multiple skills programmes are still here, contributing to Guyana’s development. But there are also many hundreds who have taken such skills to other pastures.

National Service became the victim of what can be described as the spiteful and vindictive act of political de-emphasisation. It was an error that became all too apparent as the instances of youth social ills began to rise. Many then began recalling what such institution had done for the thousands during the 70s and 80s.

Therefore, the announcement by President David Granger of the re-introduction of the Guyana Youth Corps, as from January 1, 2018, should not be a surprise, and is indeed welcomed. In fact, since coming to office, the President has been consistent in his administration’s concerns for the state of the nation’s youth.
This is timely, as it is an absolute – an intervention that will begin to halt the slide of so many of our young, who have become victims of the fallout from the worst period of socio-economic dysfunctionality ever experienced.

So many would have lost fathers, even both parents, and left to their own devices to find their footing in a world that scarcely showed them any pity, much less mercy. And since it is universally agreed, and accepted, that youth is the future, and leaders of tomorrow, we must then accept that all youths, particularly those of unfortunate circumstance, with their exuberance, even if already channeled in the wrong direction, must be re-claimed and assisted on to the right pathway. It is not too late to commence this challenge.