Trim: Youth navigating unprecedented pressures

Government is doing more to help the youth, including those who are increasingly vulnerable to crime.

In her maiden speech in the Senate yesterday, Government Senator Roshanna Trim reminded Barbadians that young people “are navigating pressures that no generation before them has faced”.

“Frustrations build loudly and quickly, the lure of immediate gratification, whether through likes, money or notoriety has never been stronger, and so too often, crime and violence present themselves as quick answers in a world where opportunities sometimes feel very slow to come,” she said during debate on the Interception of Communications Bill, 2025.

 “I’m not saying this at all to condemn my generation, because I believe in my generation, I say this to remind us that young people are navigating pressures that many generations, and no generation, indeed, before them has faced. Social media amplifies ambition and anger.

“The gig economy has reshaped how we view work and worth, cultural shifts are occurring.

She also said that “some of the old norms that our parents and grandparents, enjoyed and and grounded and rooted themselves in are no longer there, and so oftentimes as young people, we can feel unmoored, pulled in multiple directions, and so, we search for belonging and meaning.”

Trim, who at 30 years old noted that she was the youngest member of the Senate, and hence had a different perspective to share, said that in such an environment “gangs or fast money is not born out of evil, it is born out of vulnerability, out of a yearning for identity, and also the most basic human need to be seen, to be valued and to be part of something”.

“I say today that my generation is not lost, but we are simply living in a different world, and it requires us to respond with tools fit for the times in which we live and this bill does exactly that,” she stated.

“Our young people are not faceless statistics, and this government understands that, we see them as students or athletes or entrepreneurs or volunteers or sons and daughters.

“And so, this Government, which is serious about crime, has been equally serious about widening the doors of opportunity. And so, we are building a society that is trying to make it easier for young people to pick up skills than a gun, for young people to access capital to [start] a business than surrender to despair and for an athlete to travel to represent their country, rather than be lured by gangs.

“We have done that since 2018, pairing legislation with strong social interventions in youth development and in social development, and indeed in social welfare,” she noted.

Trim said “while critics may question whether that vision is realised, I say to you to look around, we are seeing the reality being built step by step, programme by programme, but there is no silver bullet, there is no magical cure, there is no abracadabra moment”.

The post Trim: Youth navigating unprecedented pressures appeared first on nationnews.com.

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