Maldives though a country with a small population of less than 400.000 is confronted with several social problems as well as psychological problems. The capital city Male’ is crowded with most of the people which consists the population along with several expatriate workers which is almost one third of the total local population of Male’.
Many families live in very congested condition as the availability of living space in Male’ is scarce. Moreover, introduction of narcotic drug abuse in the Maldives has doubled the seriousness of the condition. The youth who are getting involved in drug abuse is increasing at an alarming rate. The condition has given way to even more serious crimes such as gang violence, murder, theft and robbery.
If the responsible citizens of the country are still going to sit and warm their chairs worrying about the external affairs and politics, the internal affairs will go into such a chaotic condition which nobody can curb and we will hardly have a country to govern. The world has already shown many examples of such countries and we are still witnessing. How can we just allow our beloved country to be added into the list of most scary countries?
The problems can only be curbed by tackling the root causes of the problems. One of the main reasons why we have youth with no goal in life is the society not being able to guide them or attend to them. Families have become extremely involved in their business and work. Mothers and fathers are busy at work while the children are attended by a foreign maid of a neighbor or sometimes grandparents who are not able to take care of themselves properly due to age. Thus the idle lifestyle of some youth has been utilized by drug dealers at an instrument to involve them in drug abuse and other crime associated with it. Moreover when children are convicted of the crimes parents try to protect them instead of saving them from such behavior.
So the problems actually lie within our own homes. If we are able to start with the homes to solve the problems it may help us to reduce and eventually curb the problem. However, to carry out such a task even a non-governmental organization of body will need a lot of support from the government. It is sad that sometimes the responsible people believe that they are doing enough. But if they are doing enough the problem would have at least subsided.
Further we are lacking the technical knowhow and skilled people to carry out such a task. The first Maldivian clinical psychologist as I know is Ms.Aishath Ali Naaz. She has rendered her services to the country to some extent and as I believe she is pursuing further studies. Further government has trained some counselors which very basic training to attend drug addicts in rehabilitation centre and even to assist the cases in Tsunami crisis. However, this is not enough. The country needs more psychologists devoted to curb the social crisis of the country and the country needs governments support in this regard.
It is sad to know that many Maldivians who graduate in Psychology remain in foreign countries to serve. Some of them remain there as their country has no scope as they believe or their country is in chaos so it is safer to be somewhere which is safer. But they hardly know that they are the main source that can help the country to be I harmony and peace. Recently just a few people who had been counselors abroad have come to Maldives to see the scope and they have already found that they needed in their country. It is good news for the country that more than 20 Maldivian people graduated in Psychology from University of Mysore between 2009 and 2010. However, their expertise and knowledge have still not been properly utilized. Some of them are still without a job as well. They have mostly worked in the field of education before and most of them were assigned jobs in the field of education as there is no specific place or authority to retain psychologists and help them provide their services to the country. Very soon we will find more psychologists trained from Malaysia as well as India and the UK. But where will they work or will they get what they need in their country? Will they also be fed up and finally leave the country?
Some of the students who acquired their degree in Psychology at Mysore have decided to join their hands to form an association of psychologists in the Maldives. Hope that this association would come to life soon and shine upon the country.
