Challenge an Opportunity

Many things can make a Monday blue. Mine was the main story of the seven pm news. While violence has become a regular occurrence in many of our communities, it is with sadness to take note when the ones happening in your home town make the prime time news bulletin.

Pic by: Lee Jacobs

What caught my eye was not only the dog walking with sunglasses. But during the insert a young man says the youngsters are throwing stones as they also want job opportunities.

Now I’m not sure if it is a coincidence but this story featured the same day as Statistician General, Pali Lehohla, made public the Vulnerable Group Series: The Social Profile of Youth 2009 –2014 report. Based on the report more coloured and black youth in South Africa are unemployed, involved in crime and uneducated.

In November 2014 I wrote a column Youth need to take responsibility. I allude to no one being raised to be bad, nor would any parent want their child to use drugs or become a gangster. And ask myself where did we fail and who is failing us?

I am strongly of the opinion that where you come from do not determine your destiny. Also that responsibility and ownership is not determined by government, but by parents, the youth and our society at large. It makes me wonder do communities not determine their identity.

As child we taught what is right and what is wrong. It should worry us that our youth despise this, favouring wrong over right. Why it is sad that children hold their seniors hostage – what happened to one of those tenth commandments to honour your mother and father. Surely in a community the aunty and uncle you pass is a mother and father and should be honoured.

I hold no answers. I do know we will all have to work together to address a challenge. In the column I wrote that society has the ability to create their identity, by being an active community – where we not only know our neighbours but where we talk to one another.

There is no quick remedy for our challenges, but it starts with me as an individual. Parents are only the vessel that brings a child into the world. It is still my task as child to be responsible and take ownership.

Paarl and more specific Drakenstein hold many potential. It has many success stories, icons and opportunities. If the story on the news showed me anything, it was an opportunity for myself and many others that now is the time for youth development through creating economic opportunities.