There’s a quiet crisis happening across our communities—one not always captured by headlines or statistics, but deeply felt in the lives of young people trying to find their footing.
You see it in the eyes of a teenager who’s sent out a dozen job applications and heard nothing back. In the college graduate back home, degree in hand, still waiting for a call. Not lazy. Not entitled. Just… left hanging.
This isn’t about crime statistics or economic jargon. It’s about the dangerous vacuum that forms when ambition meets a wall of silence. Not everyone turns to the streets or shady deals—but when structure collapses and systems fail to include, the margins swell. And in those margins, some of the brightest minds are lost—not to ignorance, but to disillusionment.
It’s easy to preach about self-reliance from a position of comfort. Harder to admit that we’ve built an economy where resilience often looks like desperation. What happens when “do the right thing” no longer pays the bills, earns respect, or opens doors? What message does that send?
Young people don’t just want jobs. They want dignity. They want to matter.
We talk about reform, development, growth—but growth for who? Reform that skips the foundation leads nowhere. If we want safer streets and stronger communities, we must start by ensuring that raw potential isn’t wasted. That the energy of youth isn’t left idle. Because idle hands don’t just do the devil’s work—they destroy hope, slowly.
This is a call, not just to policy-makers, but to employers, educators, business owners, and citizens. Don’t underestimate the cost of inaction. Because if we don’t find ways to include them, someone else will—often with consequences we all pay for.
