In our last epistle, we promised to tackle a matter which is closer to our hearts this week – STREET KIDS!
For those of you who are fond of posting comments, for the sake of it, without bothering to dissect, chew and digest the contents contained therein, we’d implore you to think twice…..this is a delicate and emotive issue.
The police in Lusaka have arrested 47 junkies in Kamwala South….then what next? Are they going to send them to jail? Of course, not! What charges are they likely to be slapped with? Most likely ‘shishita’ (idle standing). Before long, they’d have gone back to their vomit in our communities!
But who are these junkies and where do they come from?
Junkies do not just pop up from the blues in our localities like mushrooms! They come from dysfunctional or broken homes and, of course the streets!
When children arrive on our streets in their droves and earn themselves the nomenclature, STREET KIDS….they mainly eke a living doing odd jobs and asking for alms from the Good Samaritans; and when we refuse to give them anything, they resort to eating from the rubbish bins.
Have you ever bothered to investigate why they’re always ‘glued’ to those small bottles before condemning them?
There are mainly two reasons that make them eventually succumb to the temptation of genkem: 1. Like every human being, they are obviously ashamed to find themselves living a life of shame on the streets. For them to muster some ‘Dutch courage’ or indeed escape from the hell-hole they find themselves in, they seek solace in genkem 2. Most of us can imagine the pain of enduring cold nights in the open air on a hard floor. Genkem is the ‘blanket’ that keeps them warm at night and enable them insulated from the mosquitoes.
Once the street kids transition into adolescence, they obviously become ashamed to continue life on the streets.
What happens next?
They start retreating back to their communities, mainly seeking shelter in the uncompleted shelters. In the fullness of time, they team up with their peers who are equally running away from home due to abuse at the hands of cruel relatives or lack of basic needs. Henceforth, they become like OWLS. During the day, they’ll go into hibernation……mainly keeping themselves busy consuming copious amounts of highly potent alcoholic beverages and smoking marijuana.
By the time night replaces the day, they literally take over the alleys and the streets, lying in wait for their prey. Those kids can be quite something else; if anyone makes a mistake of coming into close proximity with them, they’ll charge on you like hungry wild dogs and dispossess you of all your earthly possessions – phones, money, wrist watches, clothes and shoes! And if you dare pretend to be Rambo and try to fight back….oh boy, oh boy, you’d have booked yourself a ward at the University Teaching Hospital or space at Chingwere cemetery!
For those of you who may not be in the loop; for several years, we had been calling upon successive governments to consider calling for a National Indaba on Street Kids so as to bring all stakeholders on board (the Church, traditionalists, NGOs, political players, corporate world and the donor community) to thoroughly interrogate the problem and identify possible solutions! Alas all our pleas landed on deaf ears!
However, immediately the UNPD formed government and we repeated our calls; government wasted no time acquiescing to our request. It actually had to take us to endure a punishing 365KM marathon walk from Kitwe to Lusaka for us to be heard.
The Ministry of Community Development & Social Welfare finally organised a symposium at the Mulungushi Conference Centre and all who mattered attended. As usual, speeches were made, plenary sessions were held and resolutions were made. What happened up to the resolutions is a matter of guess work as the plight of street kids remains the same!
As we conclude, we would like to appeal to the New Dawn Administration, particularly the responsible ministry to revisit the plight of street kids. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel; the resolutions are already sitting in one of the offces gathering dust.
As for the junkies, this requires a radical approach! Can we take this matter to parliament so that we can come up with the necessary legislative framework which will compel all the junkies to be rounded up and whisked away to the State farms under the auspices of ZNS for them to get ‘cleaned’ as they utilise their energy helping improve the national food security by growing winter maize, beans, onions and raising goats for export to Congo DR and the Arab world, respectively! Why should we always rely on Copper which is a diminishing asset to generate foreign exchange? Don’t even allow the donor community to lecture us about human rights; a good number of our people in the shanties are getting killed and injured by the junkies! Donald Trump has already set the tone by ejecting unwanted people from the land of opportunities!
Until next time. Shalom!
Prince Bill M Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst
