Dear Editor,

Often, Jamaican youth who reside in ghettos graduate from high school with little or no qualification; however, there are a number of leading factors which cause this to happen. They include poverty, poor parenting, and underused potential.

However, there are tools that can be used to overcome the many challenges they face.

A lot of our youth are faced with financial problems and so many of their parents have difficulties paying for their Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations. Another factor is that parents cannot provide proper nutritional meals for their children. As such students are forced to attend schools on empty stomachs, which affect their learning on a day to day basis. All these problems that students face lead to them becoming high school dropouts.

Parents play a vital role in the lives of their children. They are usually the ones who provide support and guidance to their children throughout their adolescent years. Whenever that level of support is not present in children’s lives very often they become misguided and fall as victims of peer pressure since they have no one around to guide them. Many end up skipping classes because they don’t see the need of an education, while others become dropouts and gang members, who in the long run get incarcerated.

The school environment exposes students to a lot of different activities that students can use to build their skills and potential. However, the school system places a lot of emphasis on students performing academically rather than allowing them the opportunity to explore and find their niche. Albert Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its entire life believing it is stupid.” Hence, a student who has the potential to excel at sports might not perform academically in class, and very often our youth don’t get the chance to reveal their maximum potential because they are taught to believe that there is only one way to success and that is through education.

But Jamaican youth who are from the inner city can indeed overcome these challenges. We are living in a technological era in which social media is prevalent, and as such we have a wide range of ways to make money. Gone are the days when we would have to wait until the age of 30 to become millionaires; in fact, we have 15-year-olds who are self-made millionaires.

Here is a list of things teenagers not just from low-income communities, but all Jamaican teenagers can do to generate income:

• create YouTube videos;

• create a podcast and attract sponsors;

• monetise blogs and allowing ads on your site;

• sell tangible products such as art and crafts;

• manage social media accounts;

• become a virtual assistant;

• tutor weaker students;

• start a T-shirt line.

Even though you might not have been born in a family of wealth and are faced with a number of significant issues that may affect you as a youth from the ghetto, there are options these days to overcome the many challenges that they are faced with.

Tajay Francis

mrtajayfrancis@gmail.com