The Sunday Mail
It is so hard for children born in the ghetto to make it in life. 75% of children born in the ghetto will not make it because of what they are exposed to and because of how they are nurtured
A child doesn’t become a drug addict by accident and a child doesn’t become a doctor by accident . A parent is 75% responsible for who a child becomes or not become. Everything will come down to the nurturing style of a parent .
Why did I say 75% ? I did a research about how children are raised in the ghettos and as a case study I am going to focus on a ghetto called Rugare ,it is located in Harare . It is found just after Lytton industries before Kambuzuma.
The reason why I chose Rugare is because I stayed there and i did my grade six and seven at Rugare primary. I stayed in a street called Surf street so when I was doing my research I started by examining everyone I played with in that street and everyone I knew then I started doing my research going every street to gather all the information.
When I was growing up in Surf street I didn’t understand why almost everyone was always roaming in the streets. Almost everyone failed school, going to A level was impossible for many . Those who finished school would play with us who were doing grade six and we were playing soccer the whole day. We were 30 boys and from those 30 boys only 4 went to university the rest are just stuck in poverty and some left for South Africa.
What made me do this research was because I didn’t understand why almost everyone was destined to fail. When I visited the street as I was doing my research even girls never became anything notable. Most of them were just impregnated and they are staying home with their parents with their children. Almost everyone is still there ,either at a parents place or renting some street but still there in Rugare . How come it’s so difficult to come out of this place ? . After I did this research I realized almost all ghettos are like that.
Why is it that almost everyone ended up the same ? Let me talk about the culture and the parental style I discovered that happens in most ghettos. Children in the ghettos are practically raised by the streets ,by what they see happening in the streets and their role models are street kings and queens .
In Rugare we used to play in the streets for the whole day. We were raised by the streets and people became what they were seeing in the streets. There is nothing wrong about playing but what becomes wrong is what children are exposed to as they play and the ideas they develop in the process. This is exactly what makes them end up having the same fate. This also explains the language and the behavior that many ghetto children will end up developing .
As we were playing ,we played as people of all ages. You would see grade three’s there, grade seven’s there then those that were doing their O level were there and those who failed school. We were just playing and playing and we loved playing. The culture of playing was everything from the young to the old.
Those who graduated from playing would still hang out in the streets doing nothing for the whole day. We would see them smoking weed and touching girls for the whole day. From time to time these elders would come to socialize with us and they loved spending time with us . You would see them watching us playing soccer and commenting everything we were doing even though they were elders.
They were involved in almost everything we were doing as they were just observing us. As one make it to form one , one would start smoking weed because these elders were smoking in our presence . Almost everyone would end up smoking weed just like them at form two level.
These guys would then start introducing sex to girls who would be roaming in the streets as well. They would sleep with almost every girl who would be doing form two or three. So at the end of the day time is spent walking to and from in the streets. Looking for weed and which girl to sleep with.
Many children in the ghetto have no role models . They are not exposed to big things and big dreams in life. When everyone around you is failing failure becomes normal . I saw many of them quitting school at ZJC level because they saw it as a waste of time and they could predict that they were also going to fail so why not just stop going to school.
If I didn’t change my environment and went to a great school which gave me access to rich people with a different culture I would have ended up just like my Rugare friends .
My cousin saw this early even though he stays in Highfield ,he refused to allow his children to be raised by the streets. His children don’t know anyone in the streets. The first thing he did was to put on a durawall and he never allowed them to go into the streets. He put on internet into his house and bought them laptops so that they would spend the whole day connected to the best things in this world.
He takes them to best places so that they are exposed to the best things and he is involved in everything they do. He is a nurturing parent. His Son is now doing medicine at Uz. He never allowed his location and its limitations to nurture his children. He knows exposure is everything . Children become what they see. It’s up to the parent to do something about it.
Love and Relationship coach Brian Matsaira
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