This article was published in The Citizen Newspaper – Tanzania on August 5, 2025.
Shimbo Pastory
It is a saddening reality that cases of suicide are becoming common especially among young people. Many feel overwhelmed by the trials and struggles of life, work, debts, and other pressures, and end up taking their own lives. This is a serious problem that needs serious remedial approaches.
According to statistics, about 700,000 people die suicidal deaths every year around the world (Health Policy Watch, 2024), with attempts numbering much more than that. This number has been on the rise over the years, with about 50 per cent of those cases being linked to different mental health conditions.
Most people live with serious mental health problems without their knowledge, and as such with time their situations become severe, leading to extremes such as self-harm and suicide.
While globally the African continent has among the least numbers of cases, it does not make it a less serious issue. This is because human life is involved.
We must agree that people are built and groomed differently and as such have varying capacities inasmuch as handling of pressure and stressful situations is concerned. What can be a non-issue to one can be a big problem to another, leading them to anxiety, losing a sense of value of their own lives or even feeling hopeless about themselves.
It is high time for young people to hold hands and help each other. In most cases fellow young people can understand and relate the pains and struggles of others with their own lives.
There is a kind of generational discontinuity with regards to how we look at life. Each generation tends to operate in a certain more or less shared worldview. This means we can help each other better in case of these extreme situations in life which can make people give up in life.
Nonetheless, many young people do not have the skills or emotional intelligence to detect when another is meditating the extremes or when they direly need mental health support or even psycho-spiritual accompaniment.
We need to learn as young people to detect the pain in others, especially through what they say to us. Conversations tend to empty the deep-seated thoughts and emotional inclinations.
There is a lot of struggles and vulnerability hidden behind jokes, beautiful pictures, company, hobbies, and shared fun in its variety.
In our African settings, most people dislike acknowledging having mental health problems, which makes getting help on time difficult. We hide the struggles we do not understand and feel like they are normal and will just disappear on their own. We tend to be ashamed of being counselled, of being heard, and of emptying the deep-seated troubles within us. But this is not how life works! There are situations where we need help as a matter of indispensable necessity and urgency.
Our country boasts of a majority of young and youthful population, with about 76 per cent of its population aging below 35 years old. This makes any issue affecting young people a serious one. Most pressures are shared, including cultural pressures and expectations that we ought to assume adult life responsibilities such as marriage, building houses, etc. early as it was with the previous generations.
Young men and women find themselves in dilemma as there is so much expected of them yet with little systemic assistance to attain those. There is also a pressure of peer competitiveness where one feels that they lag behind so much as compared to their peers, leading to losing hope and a feeling of disappointment towards oneself.
Many would as well try to catch up with other people’s lives which they see online, which in most cases is far from the reality on ground. All these are pressures that can build up to be devastating.
We can remedy these situations by encouraging each other to take life easy, one day at a time. We are all different and are destined differently. We are not required to be successful like others and do or have things that others have. This needs to be told to young people right from their childhood.
On the other hand, we need to seek the best solutions to problems, and where need be, to seek advice from elders or those who have more experience in life. Our world obviously runs pretty much faster, especially with the ease that communication technology has created. There are many extreme troubles that are directly linked to the use of communication technology and what is shared therein; making them very new contexts.
Peer support goes beyond outing and partying together. It needs to be more life-giving than that, such that peer groups at schools, workplaces and neighbourhood create safe spaces for genuine conversations about life struggles, especially with regards to survival, work, relationships, finances, etc. as these are among the most common issues that have birthed suicides amongst our fellow young people. It is time for young people to stand with each other as pillars of support and strength; everyone is vulnerable to these extreme and traumatizing life-threatening pressures.
Shimbo Pastory is an advocate for positive social transformation. He is a student of Theology at the Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines. Website: www.shimbopastory.com
