A new UN report asks us to rethink youth mental health not simply as a matter of individual symptoms, but as a question of the wider ecosystems in which young people live, learn and work.

There is a sentence in the middle of the United Nations’ new report on youth mental health that I have not been able to set down: “There is no ‘cure’ for being human”. Thriving, its authors write, does not mean the absence of hardship. It is a rare admission for an institution whose native idiom is targets and indicators, and it signals something larger than a change of tone.

Youth Mental Health & Well-being in an Uncertain World: A Global Call to Action, produced by the UN Youth Office and the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health and launched in September’s UN General Assembly, asks governments to stop treating young people’s distress mainly as a matter of individual symptoms. Instead it proposes an ecosystem model of 10 linked domains: governance, education, decent work, housing, climate, digital technology, peace, the arts, sport and spirituality. Each can tend or erode a young person’s life.

Youth Mental Health: The Sobering Global Figures

The figures are sobering. One in seven people aged 10 to 19 lives with a mental health condition, and half of these conditions emerge by 18. Suicide remains among the leading causes of death for the young, and close to three-quarters of the world’s suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries. Yet only 56% of countries have a child and adolescent mental health policy, against 81% with adult policies, and most spend less than 2% of their health budgets on mental health.

More telling than the numbers is the report’s philosophical turn. Drawing on Tyler VanderWeele’s flourishing research at Harvard, it insists that well-being belongs to the person and to her world at once: the tree and the forest must both be doing well. It speaks of relational well-being, of care, connection and community as the ground of collective health, and of each young person as, in some measure, the embodiment of her surroundings.

Flourishing Denied

African readers will recognise this terrain. Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu; motho ke motho ka batho: a person is a person through other persons. Ubuntu has long held that personhood is not a possession but an achievement of relation, and that no self can flourish in a community that is failing. The report arrives, by way of Harvard, at a truth spoken in isiZulu, isiXhosa and Sesotho for generations. I welcome that convergence, and want to push it further.

In my own work I call this condition flourishing denied: the tearing of the relational webs that hold a life, from the household to the planet. Read this way, much of what we name youth mental illness is not, or not only, a malfunction inside the young person. It is an accurate registration of a world that has come apart around her. The report comes close to saying so. Citing UNICEF, it notes that six in 10 young people faced systemic challenges in the past year, led by economic instability and climate change, and that more than half lack hope for the future. UNESCO, it adds, has found an erosion of young people’s belief in their own futures, rooted in historical injustice. Despair of this kind is not a disorder of perception. It is, very often, perception itself.

This matters because the language of resilience, which the report uses generously, can return the burden to the young. We teach adolescents to regulate their emotions, to breathe, to cope, and then send them out into economies that have no place for them. Resilience is a virtue; it is not a policy. No young person should have to become heroically adaptable to survive conditions a decent society would not impose.

Nowhere is this clearer than at home. In the second quarter of this year Statistics South Africa reported youth unemployment of 47.4% among 15- to 34-year-olds, and more than a third of 15- to 24-year-olds were neither employed nor in education or training. The report cites South African research finding that between 21 and 24.5% of students live with conditions ranging from social anxiety to post-traumatic stress. Set side by side, these figures make the ecosystem model concrete. For many young South Africans, decent work is not one domain among 10; it is the load-bearing wall.

Hope In Its Pages

The report’s most consequential move is to anchor all this in human rights. It recalls the Secretary-General’s insistence that mental health is a right, not a privilege, and General Assembly resolution A/RES/77/300, which defines mental health not by the absence of a condition but by an environment in which dignity is respected. South Africa needs no persuading. Our Constitution guarantees access to health care, adequate housing and a basic education, and an environment not harmful to health or well-being. The report offers a way to read these guarantees together: a student’s panic attack in an overcrowded residence may be a housing question, a safety question and a labour-market question.

There is hope in its pages too. Much of the report’s texture comes from youth-led initiatives, many of them African: peer-support circles, restorative justice networks, arts-based healing, digital helplines. Young people are already building the ecosystems that states have been slow to fund, and the report rightly insists that they be co-authors of the response, not its beneficiaries.

A call to action is only as good as the action it calls forth, and the report is candid that policies on paper have not yet become services on the ground. Its model is a map. What South Africa needs now is the political will to walk it: to budget for mental health, to design labour, housing and education policy with young minds in view, and to resource the young people already doing the work.

There is an isiZulu word I return to often: ngisazophumelela, I will yet succeed; I am still becoming. It is not a statement of certainty but a grammar of persistence, a future tense spoken from inside difficulty. The question the UN has put to us is whether we will build a world in which it can come true.

Disclaimer: Prof Bohler-Muller writes in her personal capacity and does not necessarily represent the views or position of the University of the Free State. 

A digital holiday can offer a practical pause from screens and constant connectivity. From children to working professionals, taking regular time offline can help rebuild attention, creativity, relationships and a healthier balance with technology. A digital detox can help children and adults reduce screen dependence, reconnect with nature and relationships, and create space for reflection and creativity.

Imagine a day without digital devices. Those of us who grew up in the 1990s remember the shift firsthand — from writing letters with ink pens to typing messages on social media and making video calls. Artificial intelligence and rapid technological change now touch nearly every part of daily life, and an internet-first era has drawn humanity into a globally connected network. We ask AI chatbots for advice on everything from recipes to relationships. Yet the love of books and literature hasn’t disappeared — it has simply changed form. Audiobook platforms have grown fast, gaining listeners who once preferred print. At the same time, attention spans are shrinking as short-form video reshapes how we consume information. In an era built around likes, shares and instant search results, there is a real case for finding a better balance between online and offline living.

Children under 16 in particular need more exposure to offline living, and less dependence on screens. Time away from devices helps children build social skills, sharpen critical thinking, and learn to approach problems from multiple angles — all of which support holistic personal development.

Of course, context matters. During the Covid-19 pandemic, online education became the only option once lockdowns were imposed, and digital learning kept formal education running when nothing else could. But in a post-pandemic world, governments are increasingly reconsidering how much unsupervised screen time is appropriate for children. China’s “minor mode” framework restricts screen time by age; the United Kingdom has moved to ban social media for under-16s from 2027; and New Zealand has introduced legislation to do the same. In India, Karnataka announced in its 2026 state budget that it would ban social media use for under-16s, and Goa’s government has said it is studying a similar move. The details of enforcement remain unsettled in most of these cases, but the direction of the debate is clear: policymakers across the world are actively discussing how to limit children’s social media access. A middle path — rather than an outright ban — is worth considering.

Digital Detox Awareness

Schools are well placed to lead here. A monthly digital detox awareness session, run by trained resource persons and built around hands-on, creative activities, could help draw out children’s imagination while gently reducing screen dependence. Students could keep a diary of their experience — what they noticed, what they missed, what surprised them — during each digital detox day. Over time, schools could even form “digital holiday clubs” to mark one day a month as a shared offline day. Practised consistently through school life, this could help a generation grow into adults with more clarity of thought and purpose — provided they use that offline time for something creative and productive, rather than simply waiting it out.

In practice, a life entirely without the internet isn’t realistic for most of us. But digital minimalism is achievable, and a single digital holiday once a month is a reasonable place to start. Switching off completely for one day can open space for new ideas and reconnect us with the natural world.

That day can also be a chance for self-reflection — a deliberate pause to look inward. It can be used to build a skill: writing, cooking, dancing, whatever draws you. It’s an opportunity for offline meetups with friends and family, for cycling a short distance, for reading a book purely because you chose it, not because an algorithm suggested it. A digital holiday can help you rediscover what actually matters to you and reset your priorities. It also strengthens real relationships — the kind built through presence, not notifications — and leaves room for practices like yoga and meditation that support genuine mental peace.

Digital Detox Is Harder for Working Professionals

For working professionals, this is harder. Most of us are running behind deadlines, structuring our days around work and family obligations already. Stepping outside that loop, even for a day, takes real intention. But the practice of digital detox is worth the friction — it teaches delayed gratification and reintroduces us to the quieter pleasures of offline living.

None of this is a case against technology. Instant messaging and the broader digital revolution have made services faster and more accessible than ever, and that’s worth acknowledging. But speed and convenience come with a cost if we let them: information overload, and an over-reliance on AI chatbots for decisions that deserve real human judgement. Blindly following AI-generated advice isn’t something to encourage. The internet is a necessity now — but that makes the case for balance stronger, not weaker.

Reconnect with nature. Spend real time with the people who matter to you. And once in a while, take the leap: switch off for a day, and notice the difference it makes.

About 22 kilometres from the Petlawad block headquarters in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, the village of Kesarpura has a story to tell, one about the confidence of an entire community. A Halma was held here on 19 May 2026, and what followed convinced the village that the solution it had long sought from outside had been within it all along.

Halma is a word from the Bhili dialect, often translated as a “call for help”, and it means collective voluntary labour. When a family in the Bhil community is weighed down by a burden, whether raising a house, bringing in a harvest or facing a calamity, the word goes round the village and people come, unpaid and with their own tools, to stand by them. The message is simple: you are not alone. In Jhabua the tradition has also been turned to the work of saving water. Since 2009 the local organisation Shivganga has organised large Halmas for soil and water conservation, and one in February 2020 drew some 20,000 people from about 500 villages.

Kesarpura’s only pond had been waiting for exactly this tradition. Years of neglect had left it so choked with silt and weeds that its depth was shrinking, and so was its capacity to hold water. Seepage through one stretch of the embankment quietly drained away the rainwater it collected. This is a tribal district, where Scheduled Tribes made up about 87 per cent of the population at the 2011 Census, and a hilly one: as the district administration itself notes, water runs off the slopes instead of being held by the soil, so even good rainfall can leave villages short of water. In such a landscape a failing pond meant a direct threat to a full year of farming and to the water that livestock depend on. As summer set in, the pond bed would fill with cracks, and the village’s hopes would drain away with it.

Before the Halma: a dry pond bed, heaps of silt and seepage along the embankment. Photo: Mukesh Porwal, Block Facilitator, VAAGDHARA

The village knew the problem was big, but it also knew the solution lay in its own hands. With the support of the Gram Swaraj Samuh, a village self-governance group of ten women and ten men formed by VAAGDHARA, it was decided that a Halma would be held at the pond. The idea was not new to the area: less than a fortnight earlier, on 6 May, villagers of Borpada, also in Petlawad, had used a Halma to clear a silted public well after repeated appeals to the panchayat brought no result. On the morning of 19 May, Kesarpura showed its true strength.

It began not with speeches or formal announcements but with the beat of the dhol, kundi and thali. A rally wound through the village. Children ran ahead carrying a banner that read “Traditional Halma Method,” with the slogan beneath it: “Save water regularly, and the future is secure.” Behind them walked elders, youth and women, with someone from every household carrying a pickaxe, a spade or a metal pan.

The rally sets out to the beat of the dhol and thali, with a banner reading “Traditional Halma Method”; enthusiastic children lead the way. Photo: Mukesh Porwal, Block Facilitator, VAAGDHARA

Around 150 people gathered at the pond for the Halma. There is no attendance register and no list; people come of their own accord and leave having done more than they thought they could. Under the blazing sun, heads were covered with gamchas and dupattas, yet faces glowed instead of showing fatigue. The work divided itself. Some waded into the pond to cut the weeds, others dug out silt with pickaxes and spades, and the silt was loaded into pans and basins and handed to a long line of women. The pans passed from hand to hand and head to head, and the silt made its way out of the pond.

Men wielding pickaxes and spades on the pond bed, while women stand in line holding pans. Photo: Mukesh Porwal, Block Facilitator, VAAGDHARA

The role of women was the most remarkable part of the scene. Amid their household responsibilities, they stayed at the pond all day. Recalling that day, Basanti Ninama says that when the dhol sounded she could not sit at home, and standing in line with a pan on her head, it felt like work in her own courtyard.

Everyone also worked together to pile soil on the embankment where water had been seeping out, pressing it down and strengthening it. Clearing silt and weeds and strengthening the earthen bund are the standard steps in restoring a village pond, and those who know water conservation understand that the strength of the embankment and the depth of the pond decide how long a water body lasts. When noon came, the tools were set down, but the bond of togetherness did not break. Lunch, too, was cooked by everyone together on the pond’s bank. The women wove plates from tree leaves, and then everyone sat in a long row on colourful mats. An elderly woman and a small child ate the same meal on the same mat, and the true meaning of Halma came alive right there. Here, trust takes the place of accounts, and hard work and celebration blend into one another.

 Women making leaf plates: even the preparation of the meal was a collective effort. Photo: Mukesh Porwal, Block Facilitator, VAAGDHARA

The simplicity of the leaf plate is a lesson in itself. A plate made from tree leaves leaves no plastic waste and needs no water for washing. Leaf plates have long been part of community feasts across India, and researchers describe them as a renewable alternative to plastic disposables. At an event whose very purpose is to save water, this goes beyond symbolism and becomes practice. Traditions often carry such eco-friendly solutions quietly, without any announcement.

Those who restored the pond that day included Basanti Ninama, Ganga Ninama, Surta Ninama, Sundar Mavi, Anadu Maida, Devli Mori, Phula Katara, Seema Maida, Anita Katara, Kala Ninama, Sukhram Maida, Ukarlal Maida, Mansingh Ninama, Ukar Ninama, Laxman Ninama, Dilip Vasuniya, Gendu Mori, Khima Mori, Anil Maida and Sunil Katara. Though they differ in age and family, their experiences seem threaded on a single string. For Ganga Ninama it was an emotional day: generations of her family have drunk this pond’s water, and it pained her to see it buried under silt.

“The day the pond was cleaned, I felt we had repaid our debt.” – Ganga Ninama

For men like Sukhram Maida and Anil Maida, the experience changed the way they thought. They used to believe that work on the pond was the government’s job, but on the day of the Halma they realised that when a village comes together, it has no one to wait for. “Before the Halma, we thought the government would do this work. This time we understood that when the village becomes one, we don’t have to wait for anyone.” – Anil Maida. The thought was not unique to Kesarpura: at the Samuh meeting in Borpada, someone had remarked that waiting for the government could cost another three years.

“It was very hot, but nobody complained. We want our children to see how work for the village is done.” – Devli Mori

During the event, Paramesh Patidar, Implementation Leader at VAAGDHARA, spoke with the villagers and explained that Halma is not merely voluntary labour but a tradition of standing by one another in joy and sorrow and sharing collective responsibility.

Behind the scenes, Block Facilitator Mukesh Porwal and his team also played a vital role, working at every level from mobilising people to planning the work. The steady guidance of Team Leader Dharmendrasingh Chunawat gave direction to the entire effort.

After the Halma the village returned to its routine, but nobody expected the result to show so soon. The monsoon turned out weaker than hoped. The India Meteorological Department had forecast a below-normal season, and by late July Jhabua was among the Madhya Pradesh districts reporting rainfall 33 to 45 per cent below normal; by 9 September the district’s shortfall stood at about 36 per cent. There was every fear that the pond would once again be left only partly filled. But about three months later, around August 2026, when villagers looked towards the pond, it was filled to the brim with water.

Where dust once flew, calm water now stretches far into the distance; the green grass sprouting along the edge is proof of life’s return. Photo: Mukesh Porwal, Block Facilitator, VAAGDHARA

The greatest joy was that the seepage through the embankment had also stopped. The water that came had stayed. For farmers like Sunil Katara and Mansingh Ninama, the meaning was direct: their fields will get irrigation and their cattle will have drinking water.

It is worth asking why such ponds last. Studies of India’s water infrastructure describe a recurring cycle of construction, neglect and rebuilding, with upkeep after construction as the weak link, and village ponds that were once maintained by the communities who used them fell into disrepair as that responsibility moved elsewhere. Experience shows that when a water structure is built from outside by a contractor, its upkeep often becomes nobody’s responsibility; the embankment breaks, the silt returns, and within a few years the pond can be back to its old state. A structure built through voluntary labour creates an emotional bond. Someone who has put soil into it with their own hands cannot bear to see it deteriorate. This is Halma’s greatest invisible achievement: along with the structure, it raises a whole generation of guardians. One good season in a poor monsoon is encouraging, but it is early evidence rather than proof; how long the pond lasts will depend on the desilting and embankment care the village now commits to.

The hopes ahead are considerable. In the rabi season, when fields need water the most, this stored water can become the farmers’ mainstay. With water standing in the pond, groundwater levels in nearby wells and hand pumps may also improve; case studies of desilted village ponds in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region report that nearby borewells recharged and the irrigated area grew in both the kharif and rabi seasons. Greenery is returning to the embankment, and guarding it is now the village’s shared responsibility. Remove the silt, bind the embankment, hold the rain, raise the groundwater, then irrigate the fields: this entire cycle of water conservation now appears to be complete in Kesarpura.

Greenery on the strengthened embankment, with still water on one side. Photo: Mukesh Porwal, Block Facilitator, VAAGDHARA

One sees the tradition of the elders and the labour of the young, the support of women and families, and above all a collective resolve to do something for one’s own village.

Kesarpura’s story is a reminder that development does not always wait for help from outside. In a country where, by NITI Aayog’s 2018 assessment, some 600 million people face high to extreme water stress, and where even large investments in water structures struggle with upkeep once they are built, examples like this show that the key often lies in local knowledge and community ownership. Three things together have given this pond a new lease of life: tradition meeting present-day need, institutions staying in the role of facilitators (in Borpada, too, the Samuh gave villagers room to decide for themselves rather than handing them ready-made answers), and a village that regards its resource as its own. Halma did not remove only silt and weeds from Kesarpura’s pond; it rekindled hope in people’s hearts, and today that hope is as clear as the pond’s water.