Category Archives: Young people

Doctors fear new child mental health crisis in UK, made worse by Covid

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Surge in cases expected as schools reopen and charities report 70% rise in demand for services

A surge in child mental health cases is expected to emerge as schools reopen next week, amid warnings of a “crisis on top of a crisis” hitting vulnerable children during the pandemic.

Paediatricians, psychologists and charitable groups providing mental health support all told the Observer they were seeing increasing demand and warned of another surge as lockdown is lifted. Several reported longer waiting lists for young people in need of help.

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Tobacco giant bets £1bn on social-media influencers to boost ‘lung-friendlier’ sales

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As smoking falls out of fashion, BAT is pinning its hopes on younger users of e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches

Flashing an ice-white smile for her 50,000 followers on TikTok, a fresh-faced young woman pops a flavoured nicotine pouch into her mouth, as one of Pakistan’s most popular love songs plays in the background.

More than 3,000 miles away, in Sweden, another social media starlet lip-syncs for the camera, to a different pop tune. The same little pouches, made by British American Tobacco, appear in shot.

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I’m beginning to see what my adult life will be like. I’m ready to tackle it | Bethany Castle

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I just turned 18 and I’m leaving home, moving to the city to become a uni student. I’ve already come across so many obstacles

Name: Bethany Castle

Age: 18

With less than a week to go until my big move to the city, everything is slowly falling into place. I’ve just turned 18, and I feel more and more independent, mature and ready to tackle this new life. Already I have come across many obstacles that have proved to me just how challenging life is after high school.

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Doctors warn of ‘tsunami’ of pandemic eating disorders

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Covid-19 isolation blamed as number of children with anorexia and bulimia in England soars amid fears for similar rise among adults

Psychiatrists have warned of a “tsunami” of eating disorder patients amid data showing soaring numbers of people experiencing anorexia and bulimia in England during the pandemic.

Dr Agnes Ayton, the chair of the Eating Disorder Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the number of people experiencing problems had risen sharply with conditions such as anorexia thriving in the isolation of lockdown.

She said: “We expect the tsunami [of patients] is still coming. We don’t think it has been and gone.”

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By telling our stories, we have the chance to help someone else feel less alone | Melis Layik

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The generation gap is growing into a chasm because of the refusal to listen to young people about their experiences

Name: Melis Layik

Age: 21

Writing about your life experiences on the internet is always bound to elicit some distasteful responses. The comments sections on social media posts can teem with bigotry and chaos. Despite knowing all this, I was taken aback by the scorn and contempt levelled at me in some of the responses to my diaries in this series.

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Class cancelled: how Covid school closures blocked routes out of poverty

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Oxford University project reveals devastating impact on prospects for world’s poorest students, especially girls

In the coffee-farming communities of the Peruvian Amazon, the classroom is a route out of poverty. Gabriela was studying civil engineering in a city an hour and a half from home when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

The 18-year-old, who is one of thousands of young people tracked since 2002 as part of the Young Lives project led by the University of Oxford, has been forced to postpone her education, in a country where 16% of 19-year-olds have dropped out of education because of the crisis.

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Being denied student support has thrown my plans into bedlam. But I’m determined

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As I move from the country to the city and start my life as a university student, I’m disheartened by the lack of support from Centrelink

Name: Bethany Castle

Age: 17

So much has happened in such a short time. All of a sudden, it feels as if life is progressing too fast, when only a week ago I was impatiently waiting for my new life in the city to begin.

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Taking it to the streets: ‘The movements making noise are being led by young people’

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In spite of all the challenges of the world they will inherit, young people are embracing activism to make change

When Alice Rummery sees a problem, she has one overriding thought: “What are we going to do about it?”

That’s been the driving force of an activism that was first ignited as a university student in 2018 when she was a critical part of a campaign for women’s safety in cities. Trained and supported by Plan International’s Activist Series, she worked to enable women in five cities in the world to map precisely where in that city they felt safe or endangered. Now, she is working in the public service, tasked with implementing the Women’s Safety Charter for the city of Sydney and taking the momentum of her campaigning work into practical application.

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The teenage taekwondo trainer fighting child marriage in Zimbabwe – photo essay

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Natsiraishe Maritsa saw so many friends being forced into marriage that she started a campaign to drive out the practice.

It is 11am on a Sunday and Natsiraishe Maritsa, 17, is running through some workout drills with a group of sweating teenage girls from her neighbourhood in Epworth, a poor township nine miles (15km) south-east of the capital, Harare.

On a normal Sunday, Maritsa and her friends would be attending church, but the strict 30-day lockdown imposed by the government earlier this month has banned religious gatherings – so it’s time to catch up on a taekwondo training session.

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I thought my eating disorder was my protector, but I have been anorexia’s prey | Melis Layik

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With university online and no job to go to thanks to Covid, it has become easier to spend hours in front of the mirror berating my appearance

Name: Melis Layik

Age: 21

I increased my dosage of antidepressants today. With the loosening of Victoria’s Covid restrictions and the surge of New Year’s weight loss marketing, my eating disorder has once again overwhelmed me with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing.

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Generation Z and the Covid pandemic: ‘I’m 100% more politicised’

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The virus has not only changed young people’s day-to-day lives but also their hopes and dreams for the future

Two months ago, the Guardian interviewed a group of young people from across the UK about their experiences of the coronavirus pandemic and their feelings about how their lives had been affected. Here those young people reflect on an extraordinary year and share their hopes and fears for the future.

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‘I’d sunk, lost all confidence’: the charity helping young people into work

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Georgina George and Jamil Mungul credit UK Youth-supported programmes with helping them find a new direction

  • Please donate to our appeal here

Georgina George had a tough time at school and struggled for years afterwards to work out what she wanted to do with her life.

Then just before the pandemic hit, it all came together: she discovered a passion for aviation engineering and found a job in the sector that she loved. Shaking off the problems from her past, the 23-year-old began to forge ahead.

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Wuhan a year after Covid struck: ‘Everyone wants to reset 2020’

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Wang Fan is a young craft beer brewer in Wuhan. When his city became the first in the world to enter lockdown, he volunteered to help support other residents, and documented the sudden and strict pandemic rules over that harsh winter. One year later, Wuhan is getting back to normality, and Wang Fan is even releasing a special beer to mark the recovery. He and other young people reflect on trying to get their lives back on track while much of the rest of the world struggles with the virus

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‘Sex for sanitary pads’: how Kenya’s lockdown led to a rise in teenage pregnancy

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Girls who got free sanitary products at school were pushed to desperate measures in what is being called a shadow pandemic

Thousands of girls in Kenya will not be going back to school when classes start again in January, because they became pregnant during the Covid 19-lockdown.

The African Institute for Development Policy puts the number of teenage girls who became pregnant in the country between January and May at more than 150,000, with Nairobi recording nearly 12,000 pregnancies. Anecdotal evidence from healthcare workers across the Kenyan capital suggest the true figures could be higher, as many pregnant teenagers are not coming to clinics.

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Three life-changing conversations: ‘It made me understand I am not a dirty word’

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We asked young black writers who entered our essay competition about key conversations in their lives. Queenie author Candice Carty-Williams introduces the top three

As a writer, my main concern is inviting the reader into a world that they might not otherwise know. And if it’s a world they do know, I want it to feel familiar to them. If there’s one thing I strive towards when it comes to writing, it’s legitimacy. And as a reader, I’m looking for exactly the same thing.

When it came to judging this competition, for young black writers aged between 16 and 21 on the theme of conversations, I spent a lot of time either being wowed by their penmanship, or astonished that I could so easily connect with what they were saying. It’s been a long time since I was that age, but the skill of a good writer is drawing anyone in, whatever the gaps in age, culture or knowledge.

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The Guardian charity telethon – talk to your favourite journalists

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Help disadvantaged young people by calling Marina Hyde, John Crace, Jonathan Freedland and others on Saturday

  • Please donate to our appeal here

It’s your chance to discuss this extraordinary year, one-to-one, with your favourite journalists. Marina Hyde, John Crace, Jonathan Freedland, Anushka Asthana, Owen Jones and others will be taking your calls and donations at the Guardian and Observer 2020 charity appeal telethon this Saturday.

This year’s appeal cause is disadvantaged young people, and we are raising money for three charities doing fantastic work at the sharp end of the Covid-19 social crisis: UK Youth, which funds grassroots youth work schemes; Young Minds, which helps young people with mental health support; and the anti-poverty campaigners Child Poverty Action Group.

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‘Lonely repetition and growing nihilism’: how the pandemic impacts youth mental health

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While Covid-19 has revealed weaknesses in the mental health system, unemployment for young people poses a threat to wellbeing

Lauren McNamara* says the last year feels something like a dream.

The 22-year-old from Werribee graduated university in 2019 with a degree in game design and were looking for work in their field. They had started a new relationship and had a holiday to Europe planned.

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Help us prevent Covid creating a lost generation of young people | Katharine Viner

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Life chances are in danger of being blighted by the pandemic. That’s why young people are at the heart of our charity appeal this year

  • Please donate to our appeal here

In a year of blight, uncertainty and lives interrupted, 21-year-old Aadam Patel’s experience of the pandemic will resonate among many young people and their families: “I have pressed pause on my life,” he told the Guardian in October, “and although I’m dying to resume it, I don’t even know if there’s a play button there any more.”

Getting life back on track during Covid has proved hard for many of us; but for millions of young people it will be a very major challenge. Society’s odds were already stacked against youngsters from economically deprived communities and from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds; the pandemic has brought those stark inequalities into even sharper focus, whether it is in the job market, around holiday hunger, or access to online schooling.

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