The Sunday Mail
Editor’s Brief
Victoria Ruzvidzo
Soccer Star Marvellous Nakamba is a young Zimbabwean with a heart of gold. He has a foundation that supports the underprivileged and pays fees for about 1 000 pupils countrywide.
This is almost the average size of one whole school.
He was raised well to have such a young mind so preoccupied about making a difference in the lives of others.
His recent soccer tournament for the young ones in Bulawayo is yet again an example of how impactful his interventions are.
Giving the young ones such exposure helps nurture and harness talent that would otherwise lie dormant.
It’s a platform that could transform the future of these youngsters.
Who knows, we might have the Nakambas and Cristiano Ronaldos of this world coming out of such programmes?
One of the major weaknesses of the national soccer team, The Warriors, has always been identified as failure to develop the sport at grassroots level, hence very little identification of talent.
Soccer, as with most things in life, is about investing resources and being clear about the Return On Investment (ROI) when harvest time comes.
However, while this is well and dandy, I am more preoccupied about our youths, who they have become and are becoming. This country is losing a significant number to drug addiction, prostitution and other such miscreants that they have turned into in recent years.
The youth demographic is a vital cog of any society or country. They are the leaders of tomorrow, the future that we have. So what becomes of them largely impacts on what the country or the world at large will become tomorrow.
It is in this regard that we applaud programmes such as Nakamba’s that actively engage the youth in decent sport and education, rescuing them and even preventing the young ones completely from venturing into dangerous if not lethal territories such as drug abuse.
There are quite a few other such initiatives but Zimbabwe needs more of these. One of the major reasons or excuses offered for delinquency is idleness.
“We have nothing else to do”.
Many girls that fell pregnant during the heavy Covid 19-induced lockdowns of 2020-2021 also said they did so because “we were stuck at home and had nothing else to do”.
These are obviously lame excuses but demanding our serious attention to salvage the youths.
They account for at least 63 percent of Zimbabwe’s population. That’s a serious figure that could easily work in Zimbabwe’s favour in its development discourse but on the flip-side it is one that could create headaches and compound the socio-economic challenges if not handled well and with due attention.
Government has launched a number of programmes for the youths that include vocational training.
The First Lady Dr Auxilia Mnangagwa has been running the Nhanga/Gota/Ixhiba Programme through which youths from tertiary colleges are taught life skills and our culture.
The Diaspora, with its exposure to technology, skills, sources of funding and experience, needs to play its part in engaging the youths.
The Government can surely not go it alone.
Sad stories of children running away from home to live with drug lords or onto the street to eke a living through prostitution or those that are married off early should compel the Diaspora and all of us to take action.
The social and economic costs of such ills as drug abuse are too much to pay and have left many families disintegrated while the social fabric is in tatters in some instances. It has become commonplace to see intoxicated youths aged between 10 and 35 roamed about.
In some cases, the menace has reached serious proportions where children harm their parents and guardians just so they can get access to funds to buy the drugs and illicit beers.
Stories are told of how parents are losing children to the life of drugs and how some parents are even administering drugs to their children to escape from their demands of food and shelter. It is said that some of these substances make abusers numb for two or three days and this gives relief to parents for those few days in terms of unfulfilled demands.
This is stranger than fiction but goes to expose the need for urgent strategies to rescue the situation.
“My parents sell drugs and they also give us to test their effectiveness so now we need more and more of them to carry the day,” said one of young boys caught in Epworth.
All hands really need to be on deck for effective curative and preventive measures.
The private sector can complement Government through training programmes for the youth.
If companies need to up their game the adopt youths which they train and employ or fund their small businesses so that they find decent life more enticing than a life of drugs.
The innovation and creativity that this country and continent at large needs is resident in the youth but it will remain as mere potential or even die if it is not strategically harnessed. The success of innovation hubs at universities bear testimony of this but there are millions of youths out there that require such facilities and exposure to birth the solutions hidden in their bellies.
A combinations of young and energetic minds and increasing exposure to global trends can build a formidable force capable of bringing solutions to such challenges as climate change, disease outbreaks and other natural disasters and business solutions that economies require.
The potential is huge and the advantages many, that could accrue from keeping our youths busy in laboratories, innovations hubs, underground in mines and out there in the fields.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is not a mickey mouse computer game but needs active youth participation to yield results and place Zimbabwe and Africa at large in better stead.
Almost all the sustainable goals come into play when dealing with the issue of meaningfully engaging the youth and keeping them away from the destructive paths that many of them have entered either voluntarily or involuntarily.
“Youth Participation is a fundamental right. It is one of the guiding principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that has been reiterated in many other Conventions and Declarations.
“Through active participation, young people are empowered to play a vital role in their own development as well as in that of their communities, helping them to learn vital life-skills, develop knowledge on human rights and citizenship and to promote positive civic action.”
So yes Nakamba. Way to go! We need more of you.
In God I Trust!
