15/06/2026
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SA Youth Reality 2026
South African children and youth in 2026 wake up with no guarantee of food for the day, watch masterβs graduates in their family sweep streets, and face 60.9% unemployment if they are 15-24 while 3.9M of them are not in school, work or training, all while dealing with depression, anxiety, worthlessness and hopelessness because joblessness strips identity and purpose, leading to social isolation and suicidal thoughts with almost no mental health services that do not carry stigma, sitting in classrooms where completion does not equal a job due to skills mismatches and old qualifications being phased out, carrying student debt and NSFAS gaps, getting to school on transport they cannot afford through areas still shaped by apartheid spatial planning, dodging gender-based violence and femicide, living through rising crime and protest violence, being offered alcohol, to***co, Nyaope and other drugs by people in their own communities with 30% of learners smoking daily, watching risky s*xual behavior and transactional s*x grow because poverty leaves no options, seeing friends pulled into gangs where there are no jobs, facing high teen pregnancy rates and dropout cycles, being locked out of the internet and data needed for homework or job applications, feeling like sham freedom 50 years after 1976 because youth unemployment is now worse than under apartheid, having no seat at political tables while decisions are made by greedy selfish old women and men about their future, losing trust in democracy while they are told to vote in this year's coming elections because promises stay speeches not action, carrying extra barriers if they have a disability.
And we should speak plainly, and say illegal immigrants and undocumented foreign nationals are problematic and they are happy the hashtag Abahambe as its is effective currently, because from their perspective this compounds pressure on jobs, clinics, schools, housing, and culture, norms, beliefs and traditions that define their communities, while they continue to carry the full weight of unemployment, poverty, inequality, exclusion, mental health strain, education gaps, violence, substance abuse, gangs, teen pregnancy, digital exclusion, and political exclusion as the next generation tasked with building South Africa.
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