Teenagers to save the world
- Beth Amato
Adolescence lasts from just 10 - 24 years old but it is revolutionary and innovative, which is what the world needs now.
It is said that South Africa’s signature music sensation, Amapiano (‘pianos’ in isiZulu), started when someone played piano over gospel tracks. Mirroring its youthful creators, Amapiano is hardly a spin-off, despite its heady mix of genres, but it is fluid, experimental and ultimately, original.
It is a perfect metaphor for contemporary adolescence.
Rather than viewing adolescence (defined as the developmental stage between the ages of 10 and 24 years old) as a problem to be solved, we are invited to see this life stage as a time of ideas, reimagination and revolution, which, the Lancet Commission’s Wake-up Call says is “exactly what we need for the survival of our planet”.
Rapid transitions
Professor Nicole de Wet-Billings, Wits’ Senior Director of Academic Affairs and a contributing author to the second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, explains that to nurture this brief and transitional phase of life and to realise its potential, “we must listen, invest and stand beside adolescents”.
The time has never been more critical. Currently, 90% of the world’s adolescents live in low- and middle-income countries and in sub-Saharan Africa, nearly half of the population is under 25. By 2050, one in two Africans will be adolescents or young adults. This life phase is often seen as a fleeting stage between childhood and adulthood and is known in developmental parlance as a second window of opportunity, after early childhood. De Wet-Billings explains it as one of life’s most defining and rapid transitions. The brain undergoes significant changes and is highly sensitive to shaping by experience and environmental exposure. Social connections and the development of a sense of identity are critical tasks for adolescents.
Adolescence is short but its consequences last a lifetime. “If support fails here, the costs carry forward,” says De Wet-Billings.
Adolescent angst
For de Wet-Billings, whose doctoral research examined the causes and determinants of adolescent mortality in South Africa, supporting adolescents is both a responsibility and an opportunity. “Teenagers should not be dying at all,” she emphasises. “These deaths speak to failures of environment, support and opportunity.”
Since the publication of the first Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing in 2016, much has changed. The pandemic deepened the mental health crisis, the climate emergency has intensified and social media became both a lifeline and a source of harm.
The second review, published in 2025, emphasises that if no courageous action is taken, the future for adolescents looks bleak. The commissioners project that by the year 2 100, 1.8 billion 10 – 24 year olds will inhabit a world almost three degrees warmer than before industrialisation. Many will face food insecurity, economic instability and conflict.
There is hope, though, and adolescents themselves are leading it.
Adolescent mental health pioneers
The South African Medical Research Council Wits Agincourt Unit, through its AfriCAT project, is an example of adolescent-led innovation. The project, led by Dr Bianca Moffett, was recently named a winner of the Mental Health Data Prize.
AfriCAT is a first-of-its-kind adaptive testing tool to guide care for depression and anxiety among adolescents in Africa. Depression and anxiety are leading causes of disability among adolescents, with 20 to 30 percent of South African adolescents affected. Left untreated, these conditions impact social relationships, disrupt education and increase the likelihood of risky behaviours, self-harm or suicide. As such, early detection and access to treatment can greatly improve outcomes for young people.
A defining feature of AfriCAT is its co-design approach. Adolescents, caregivers, educators and health workers in South Africa and Kenya, including young people with lived experience of depression and anxiety, are shaping the tool’s design and implementation. This participatory ethos reflects the principle of “nothing for us without us”.
Through workshops, adolescents describe how stigma, fear or school stress affect their wellbeing, guiding everything from question tone to interface visuals. “By rooting the design in lived reality, AfriCAT aims to be technically robust and emotionally resonant and a mental health tool that adolescents actually want to use,” says Moffett.
Both Moffett and De Wet-Billings honour the resilience of Africa’s youth. Whether facing mental health challenges, climate anxiety, digital overload or social fragmentation, Africa’s adolescents continue to show creativity and courage.
“The question is whether we will keep pace with their courage,” concludes De Wet-Billings.
- Beth Amato is a freelance writer.
- This article first appeared in?CURIOS.TY,?a research magazine produced by?Wits Communications?and the?Research Office.
- Read more in the 20thissue, themed #Thrive, which explores what it truly means to flourish — across a lifespan, within communities, and on and with our planet.
- This feature is part of a series on what is required for us to thrive at each stage throughout our lives. Also read: