“Improperly socialized, poorly-educated and equipped” youngsters entering a society already struggling with disease, ignorance and insecurity, spells “social disaster,” Rotarians were told Wednesday.
And the Bahamas is losing a significant portion of the battle to save its youth from such a calamity, College of The Bahamas president Leon Higgs told members and guests of the Rotary of East Nassau club at Buena Vista Restaurant.
“When a country like The Bahamas is obliged to witness the loss of its youth to HIV/AIDS, gun violence and other stressors,” Mr. Higgs said, “the social fabric is stretched and frayed.
“Put succinctly and bluntly,” he stated, “a significant proportion of this nation’s social capital is being lost to ignorance, disease and despair.”
Eventually, he continued, when Bahamian youth are “diseased” and produce children, when they themselves are in need of parental guidance, the community suffers from “the symptoms of yesterday’s failed policies.”
The behaviour of Bahamian youngsters today results from what they were taught in the past, Mr Higgs said.
“If we were improperly parented, improperly educated, and improperly inculcated with requisite moral values, who is to blame when they act out, when they misbehave and when they run afoul of the law?” Mr. Higgs asked.
The Bahamas is a nation in crisis, he said, and in order for it to progress, the government, businesses, unions, churches and other civic organizations must examine themselves to see where they have individually and collectively gone wrong.
Each Bahamian has a role to play in building the nation, Mr Higgs told his audience.
“I am concerned with suggesting that closely allied to this notion of human capital and its role in promoting sustained economic growth and development is the equally important idea of social capital, defined as ‘all the elements that make for a harmonious and cohesive society’,” he said.
“When solidarity is lacking, the quality of life suffers,” Mr Higgs observed, and described a young unemployed mother, who may have been abused as a child. “Consider the likely fate of her children. Would they not, I ask, share the fate of their mother?”
Children’s lives tend to pattern those of their parents. If men and women are diseased and distressed, it is likely that their children will be afflicted, said Mr. Higgs.
Such social issues needed to be thoroughly examined, he suggested.
“For my part,” he continued, “I look forward to the day when social issues such as crime, unemployment, gender and other related matters are subjected to informed and critical inquiry.”
Additionally, Mr. Higgs said, it is evident that the country’s schools, health care delivery systems and social institutions have failed to fulfil their mandates, thus making it increasingly difficult to respond to the needs of today’s youth, especially young men.
He said that young men are clearly being “left behind” and neglected in comparison to young women, who chose careers and furthering their education rather than ‘premature’ adulthood.
“On the other hand, there are Bahamians who are insistent that the problems besetting Bahamian society derive from the marginalization and impoverishment of girls and women,” he said.
According to Mr. Higgs, statistics prove that convicted criminals and those who find themselves in the clutches of the police are invariably young black men.
“There are statistics and conclusions which suggest that the vast majority of crimes against property and persons are committed by predatory young males,” he said.
Statistics also reveal that girls and women in college outnumber their male counterparts by a 3:1 ratio. The College of The Bahamas shares these numbers, he said.
Mr Higgs also pointed out that young men who chose technical and vocational education rather then college education have made significant contributions to Bahamian society.
“It might well be, therefore, that public attention might not be focused on the obvious, which is that Bahamian men ﾗ in their majority ﾗ might be playing a large but socially ignored role in the nation’s development project,” he said.
Mr. Higgs concluded by stressing that equal emphasis be placed on health, safety and education of all Bahamians.
By Khashan Poitier, The Nassau Guardian
