Bangladesh stands at a crucial intersection in its journey towards progress, development, and stability. While we as a nation are striving to build a prosperous future for all its citizens, one group that requires immediate attention and support is our underserved youth population. These young individuals, often trapped in cycles of addiction, crime, and limited opportunities, are the untapped reservoirs of potential that can drive the country’s growth.
Along with all our collective noble pursuits, we should recognize that effectively empowering our underserved youth is vital to building a brighter future for everyone. Investing in their emancipation from these hurdles along with the curses of child labour and domestic violence requires efforts through multi-sector collaboration and engagements.
Addiction and crime
Breaking the cycle of addiction and crime is undeniably the most crucial. The social stigma associated with addiction and criminal backgrounds often hinders reintegration into society and access to productive opportunities. A comprehensive approach involving rehabilitation programs, citizen well-being oriented policies, counseling services, and community support is imperative.
Education
Educating the underserved youth within an appropriate framework and a proactive oversight can pose as an impactful cornerstone of empowerment. These youth often face several barriers to education going as far as financial constraints, inadequate infrastructure, lack of a sound learning environment, and social stigma. For accessible and quality education, scholarships, infrastructural transformation, and policies promoting inclusivity can help overcome these barriers, enabling those who are underprivileged to acquire knowledge and competencies necessary for their personal and economic growth.
Employment opportunities
Unemployment is a major source of all their mishaps. This poses a significant challenge to the disadvantaged youngsters. Expediting productivity-driven initiatives that provide access to diverse employment opportunities would enhance possibilities for the underserved youth to have sustainable livelihoods, thereby accelerating economic growth and social development. To this end, fostering collaboration among government agencies, private sector entities, and community well-being organizations to form skill development training programs, entrepreneurial initiatives, and targeted job placement schemes could achieve the intended results.
Vocational training programs may be expanded and tailored to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving job market, encapsulating technical, digital, and soft skills development along with inculcation of moral and ethical values. Considering how paramount this is for their economic empowerment, capacity-building endeavours should be rigorously pursued so that the youth can enhance their employability and adaptability, opening doors to a wider range of possibilities.
Societal challenges
Our approach to youth empowerment must also address the underlying social issues that extensively hinder their path to a good future ahead. Broken families, domestic violence, and child labour are pressing concerns that require prompt interventions and sustainable solutions. Strengthening social support systems, formulating policies to protect vulnerable children, and providing counseling and rehabilitation services can be instrumental in addressing these issues to create a safer and more nurturing environment for those disadvantaged.
This does not end here. The list is long. The ride towards the light is bumpy, rough, and potholed. But it’s important to acknowledge that these youth are not responsible for how their lives are. Rather it is, at least somewhat, our responsibility to stand by them and to make our efforts more inclusive and diverse in order to resolve their difficulties.
Let Bangladesh grow through the transformative prowess of inclusion, collaboration, and collective impact, where none are left behind, and where the empowered potential of the youth propels the nation towards great heights of prominence.
Nafis Ehsas Chowdhury is a columnist and studies business at United International University. The author acknowledges valuable insights and guidance from Nezak Kazmi Chowdhury, a ULAB Business graduate who manages a UN-funded project.