The Hidden Struggle: Addressing the Wellbeing Crisis Among Students.

Have you ever sat down and thought for a second about the challenges students ,especially those who haven’t stayed away from home go through on campus? The world of campus students might be interesting on the outside but beneath the surface of the interesting and exciting journey are various challenges. Any college student who has studied and lived away from home can attest to reality that life is not Rosey. The thrill of independence and freedom away from home looks appealing yet underneath lie a lot of unspoken challenges .

The assumption that most people have is that “they go to campus, study, graduate and look for a job and you are set , but is that what goes down really ? Over half of the registered campuses in Kenya are located in Nairobi while the rest are scattered in various cities and town . The number of students joining campus has been increasing over the year , this means that there is shortage of housing facilities around the universities . Moving way from home , the  first challenge a students will face is the lack of housing or rather expensive housing . Lack of housing might lead most students to live near slums where it will be affordable . The real question one should ask themselves is ; is it really affordable ? The affordability comes with the fact that the place is of the lowest facilities , not hygienic and insecurities which this can impact the students the performance of students negatively . the possibility of students living in  the slum areas is 70% since 43.5% of Kenyans live below poverty . The high cost of living will force most students to look for any job to make ends meet and ensure that they take care of their needs since most of them don’t want their parents ‘prying’ in their lives . Most of the students especially the male will stop asking support from their parents and in doing so look for jobs . This makes them prey to the recruiters of illegal businesses and this leads to them doing jobs that are a threat to their security as a whole. And of coz this is different from the ladies , most of them will enter into businesses that are very dangerous and immoral such as prostitution just so they can make ends meet or even get involved in what we call “wababa” who will take care of their needs in exchange of sexual services . This is just a glimpse of what  is happening, because, what will prevent  a man from taking advantage of a young desperate  woman ? Housing is a challenge we all face as a state but you can imagine a young boy or lady out there in a foreign environment trying to solve a problem even the country as a whole couldn’t .

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Some campuses would have quite  number of hostels , but are they up to the standards required of basic human . A good percentage of students complain about the kind of environment most hostels in our universities are . Some hostels have water shortages and most of them are a mixture of students . sexual assault is on the rise because of such . Security can be a challenge if the people posing the insecurity are within the school premises or rather fellow students . Most students have to share hostels with other students , which is okay if you get a roommate whom you can get along with rather than one who will see you as a nuisance . The lack of privacy among students has been an issue in most university . there are campuses that almost four students share one room . As much as it is a good thing to share a room since it helps with interaction and expanding ones connection , is it really appropriate ? Anyone who has had to pass through such an experience can attest that it is not one of the best experience . The security as a whole is a challenge especially for students that have to commute from far to come to school in the morning or go back home in the evening .

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One would think after the high school experience it would be easy to fit in . How many students are battling depression and thoughts of attempting suicide ? A lot of students try to fit in with other students in campus and that comes with rejection and even isolation . it is not the students  fault that most of them are really not good with socializing and would prefer to keep to themselves . But is that a good thing . How many students want to have a safe space to open up on the fact that life in campus is not all milk and honey as they thought and that things are becoming overwhelming for them . The fact that we have to study at the same time manage our expenses and at the same time some of them work . Most people out there would think its okay for a student to work , which is but is it really okay that some of them would work overnight and sleep for 1 or 2 hours before going for the first lessons since there are scarce jobs that accommodate the life of a students . Balancing all this is so overwhelming plus all the expectation from all parents and relatives . Even with the rising of all of this , most Kenyan universities don’t have facilities that provide mental health services to these students hence most students when they feel very overwhelmed and with no solution they decide to take there lives since they think death as the only solution .

Parents some times cease from calling their children or rather wanting to know what they are up to . Its like they are ‘leaving them to learn the world on their own’ . This is nice as one will learn a lot, but is it the right way to do it ? Students still need the guidance of parents in this phase of their life . Whether fully or partly they still do . This will make it easy for them since they will have confidence that they have people for them who can come in in case of anything  . The transition from living with parents to living alone is not as easy as it seem. It is true that most students don’t want their parents prying in their business, but does that mean that they want them to abandon’ them totally ? Or is it that they want to make their own decision with the guidance and support from their parents without them prying too much? The feeling of being left alone in an unknown environment can be exciting but at the same time very overwhelming. This is one of the challenges most students go through but don’t talk about it since they think its normal .

Campus life is very interesting yet at the same time students are held hostage by circumstances . We do things and engage in activities that put us in danger . Trying to fit in in their friends lifestyles , the rising economy and trying to meet the expectation of their relatives at the same leaves students with very limited options . In situation like this most of them make decision because they don’t have  choice , they are held hostage with circumstances and in return its not really interesting but trying to survive at the same time coping with the academic challenges . coming from home , going to campus and finding that they are a hostage of a situation can be very challenging.

The big question is , can we get even half the solution of these problem before the joining of the next cohort?