The Struggle of Being A Young Adult In Jamaica
“Enjoy your youth, those are the best days you’ll have”.. This adage shared by several older Jamaicans seems to be one of the biggest scams I have been sold in my life. Older Jamaicans have convinced themselves that young adults who have no children, have no huge responsibilities and therefore nothing to worry or stress over. They also seem to believe that not having to walk for several miles to get to school, means we are privileged and have no excuse for not being successful. If anything, it seems that the selfish, ungrateful and lazy nature of Jamaican youth is a contributor to the lack of progress by Jamaican youth; based on the accounts I have heard from some older Jamaicans. However, this could not be further from the reality faced by thousands of young Jamaicans. Unfortunately, being a young adult does not mean worry or stress free and ambition does not seem like a useful characteristic for many of us who are trying to place ourselves in a better position than we were born into. Here’s why.
For as long as I can remember, I was sold the idea that education is the key to success. If I work hard and do well in school, I can achieve anything. However, the older I get the more it seems that someone is either lying or not playing their part in creating that reality for young adults. First of all, no one told us, or me in any event, about the expenses attached with pursuing tertiary education. As the child of a civil servant, pursuing tertiary education has put my mother and I on a financial, and emotional roller coaster, trying to make ends meet each year. If it were not for receiving scholarships and assistance from lecturers and a few family members when they could, I wouldn’t even have been at university to begin with. Now, imagine students who for one reason or the other are not so fortunate. Those who are unable to receive financial aid and those who have no family who can help. Of course, student loan is an option; for those who meet the requirements and are able to find guarantors in any event. I recall my experience of trying to get a student loan, I was unable to since no one wanted to be a guarantor. Stories about delinquent loanees whose guarantors were left with the burden of repaying these loans has resulted in hesitance to be someone’s guarantor, regardless of their relationship.
Some may blame students not wanting to pay back the loan they took; however, I believe these students were simply victims of their circumstances. After going to school for on average 3-5 years, these students are left with a loan they have to pay back and are faced with the challenge of finding a job. The first issue is that Jamaica’s job market is limited to mostly tourism, agriculture, civil servant jobs, and in more recent years call centers and the entertainment industry that we have been trying to develop. It is extremely hard for persons to find well paying jobs that will allow them to comfortably afford their basic needs and pay their loans, much less allow the comfort of purchasing wants. To make matters worse, it seems impossible to get a job based on merit and skills alone as contrary to the denial by some persons nepotism is rampant in Jamaica. Despite this, the unfortunate reality is that the best chance many youth have is trying to find a job in Kingston with its extremely high standard of living. It seems young adults are posed with 3 options:
Live in not so great conditions for an affordable cost.
Sell their internal organs to pay for rent in Kingston.
Travel from other parishes and deal with high amounts of traffic to and from Kingston, inadequate infrastructure, or both.
While living outside the corporate area is much more affordable, the limited job options places young adults at a disadvantage. The reliance on industries like tourism means a threat to earning an income when crises like the current Coronavirus pandemic cripples the industry. Reliance on industries like farming means that persons are left to deal with the challenges posed by either nature or insufficient infrastructure due to poor development in rural areas.
These are a few of the limited options provided to students who are able to pursue post-secondary education to begin with. What about those who did not make it through high school?What about the myriads of youth who are unemployed? Who can’t even afford to pursue an education and can find no way out to help themselves? The institutions put in place to help them seemingly making things even harder for them to try and improve their standard of living. An already small job market becomes even more inaccessible, leaving a large percent of our population at the mercy of the government or whatever they can find to help themselves.
Older Jamaicans have an obsession with going through struggles to see what you are made of, however, observing how they have spent most of their lives working with next to nothing for themselves is further demotivating for young adults. It would seem that the only reward for hard work for some persons is even more struggles. All I ask is that young adults be given more opportunities that they can actually afford to pursue. Jamaican youth deserve better and an effort must be made to cater to them. The prevalence of nepotism needs to end so that everyone can be given equal opportunity to a share of the pie. It is unfair for persons to be forced to pay unreasonably high prices to live in an all in one matches box simply for the convenience of living in Kingston; therefore some regulation needs to be implemented and enforced to ensure that real estate owners do not exploit desperate young adults. Furthermore, the job market, especially outside of the corporate area, needs to be diversified and made accessible for persons to safely, comfortably and affordably live, work and raise families. After all, the most invaluable resource that Jamaica has is its youth, and it makes no sense to drive them away because of insufficient resources and opportunities.