We live in chal­leng­ing times. If we are to build in­clu­sive so­ci­eties, we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ad­dress the chal­lenges faced by youths to­day.

On Thurs­day, 15 Oc­to­ber, while I was still in Lon­don, I was asked to com­ment on UK Prime Min­is­ter Andy Burn­ham’s re­marks to youths at the King’s Trust Cen­tre in Man­ches­ter.

The King’s Trust (for­mer­ly the Prince’s Trust) is a UK-based char­i­ty found­ed in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales). Since it was es­tab­lished 50 years ago, the King’s Trust has sup­port­ed over 1.3 mil­lion young peo­ple (11-30-year-olds ) “across the UK - and ex­pand­ed glob­al­ly” - help­ing them “build brighter fu­tures, achieve their am­bi­tions and move in­to work.”

PM Burn­ham’s words about de­vel­op­ing a “new so­cial con­tract” with young peo­ple should res­onate with us in T&T al­so. In­ter alia, he said: “Young peo­ple have al­ways got to be the pri­or­i­ty for in­vest­ment if we want a stronger so­ci­ety in the fu­ture.. We’ve got to think about a whole gov­ern­ment, whole so­ci­ety change in the way we sup­port young peo­ple...What are we go­ing to do for young peo­ple? What guar­an­tees are we go­ing to give them?”

PM Burn­ham recog­nis­es that there are busi­ness­es across the coun­try that want to help and the Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to make it eas­i­er for them to help e.g. by “in­vest­ing an ad­di­tion­al £2.5 bil­lion in The Youth Guar­an­tee and Growth and Skills Levy...a range of fund­ed pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives to help em­ploy­ers ben­e­fit from mean­ing­ful op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple aged 16 to 24.”

Years ago, Nel­son Man­dela said: “To the youth of to­day, I have a wish to make: be the scriptwrit­ers of your des­tiny and fea­ture your­selves as stars that showed the way to­wards a brighter fu­ture.”

But youths need so­ci­ety’s sup­port to en­able them to flour­ish/re­alise their po­ten­tial. They face a com­plex mix of dig­i­tal, eco­nom­ic, men­tal health, and so­cial pres­sures, and we must lis­ten to them if we are to reimag­ine and build a new so­cial con­tract with them.

The In­sti­tute for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Re­search’s (IP­PR) State of a Gen­er­a­tion re­view is in­sight­ful. IP­PR is an in­de­pen­dent UK char­i­ty. Its re­view is “de­signed to see the world through the eyes of young peo­ple and de­vel­op a holis­tic pol­i­cy pro­gramme that re­sponds to the chal­lenges they face.”

The IP­PR analy­sis (June 2026) finds that young peo­ple across Eng­land are in­creas­ing­ly los­ing faith in their fu­tures. “The analy­sis finds that 16–21-year-olds have low­ered their ex­pec­ta­tions as hous­ing be­comes less af­ford­able, se­cure work hard­er to find, and the tra­di­tion­al path­ways to adult­hood feel in­creas­ing­ly out of reach.

“The be­lief in mer­i­toc­ra­cy al­so ap­pears to be un­der­mined, as on­ly one in 4 young peo­ple now be­lieve every­one has a fair chance to go as far as their tal­ent and hard work will take them. The trends are ev­i­dent across all lev­els of de­pri­va­tion, sug­gest­ing pes­simism is no longer con­fined to the most dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties. How­ev­er, young peo­ple in de­prived ar­eas re­main more wor­ried about un­em­ploy­ment.

“The sharpest di­vide is linked to men­tal health...IP­PR warns this grow­ing pes­simism could have pro­found eco­nom­ic con­se­quences if young peo­ple in­creas­ing­ly dis­en­gage from work, low­er their am­bi­tions, or lose faith that ef­fort will lead to a bet­ter life.”

El­lie Har­ris, prin­ci­pal re­search fel­low and head of chil­dren and young peo­ple at IP­PR, said:

“Ex­pec­ta­tions shape be­hav­iour. When young peo­ple lose faith in their fu­tures, that doesn’t just af­fect their well­be­ing, it risks weak­en­ing eco­nom­ic growth, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and so­cial co­he­sion too. This is not sim­ply a cri­sis af­fect­ing a small mi­nor­i­ty. Con­fi­dence is falling across Eng­land, across so­cial groups, and across gen­ders. The chal­lenge for pol­i­cy­mak­ers is not on­ly to im­prove out­comes for young peo­ple, but to re­build be­lief that those out­comes are still at­tain­able.”

WHO, UNICEF, UN­ESCO and oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions have iden­ti­fied the fol­low­ing as some of the chal­lenges that youths face:

• Men­tal health cri­sis;

• So­cial me­dia and dig­i­tal pres­sure eg cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, peer pres­sure and body im­age is­sues;

• Eco­nom­ic in­se­cu­ri­ty and un­em­ploy­ment, in­clud­ing pover­ty, so­cial ex­clu­sion, and home­less­ness;

• Crime and vi­o­lence;

• Aca­d­e­m­ic and per­for­mance stress;

• Glob­al in­sta­bil­i­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis;

• Sub­stance abuse and risky be­hav­iours.

Here in T&T, much has been writ­ten about chal­lenges that youths face, and rec­om­men­da­tions in re­ports, such as Sel­wyn Ryan’s No time to quit: En­gag­ing Youth at Risk (2014), are still of use in help­ing us to find so­lu­tions, as we seek to re­new our so­cial con­tract with youths.

We can make it if we try!