Second Winner – JSC Samwel N. Nambandi
It is a well known fact that parents have a crucial role to play in bringing up children with acceptable manners.
According to a well proved definition from the Oxford dictionary, juvenile delinquency “is bad behavior or unacceptable criminal behavior particularly in young people.”
If a certain country has a high number of criminals, peace and stability will not prevail therefore it can be correlated to a country with war.
What negative impact do criminals have on the economic situation? How will the young ones perceive criminals?
How can parents mould their children into responsible adults to be?
There is a saying which says and I quote “charity begins at home”.
In addition, basic education begins at home before the child enters formal education in terms of primary, secondary and tertiary education respectively.
In Namibia, there are some factors which led to parents being too reluctant and to withdraw from participating in bringing up their children.
These factors are poverty, being illiterate, ignorance and lack of proper resources.
Poverty is playing a critical role at grassroots level whereby, if a child has no proper materials such as books, school uniform and is living in a shanty town where there is no electricity to revise school work at night, it can lead to failure at school.
Many parents are illiterate in Namibia, and this has a negative impact on the behaviour of young people.
This may lead to notorious behaviour and lack of discipline among themselves. For instance, a child who is educated that the only way to earn a living is via engaging in criminal activities. Ignorance is one of the issues which our founding president is trying to root out from the citizens of Namibia.
To be ignorant is a state of not paying attention to our works as well as not participating voluntarily in public calls. That is why if a specific child is ignorant he/she can not pay attention to a parent. These children who are from these parents tend to engage in unacceptable behaviour, such as abusing drugs, prostitution if a girl and so on.
It is a well known fact that with parents who have withdrawn from guiding their children, some of these children are roaming around streets and some are employed where their wages are below the standard wage.
Young people learn from their role models, therefore if a child is staying in a hood where criminal activities are high, the child can emulate the same behaviour.
Generally speaking, the government is pumping a huge amount of money into prisons throughout the country, thus to feed, provide training and to maintain cleanliness in all these institutions.
If parents are not making changes in the lives of their kids in terms of moulding them into responsible adults to be, then an unequal distribution of government care is expected.
Parents are perceived as a source of imperative manners in all aspects of our lives, therefore without parents, children cannot be brought up with discipline and with good visionary leadership that will enable them to become future leaders.
In Namibia, culture is depleting and losing its value. This is one of the factors that is affecting young people negatively, for instance if culture is not strengthened amongst the young ones they will indulge themselves into adultery while they are still immature to make decisions.
Parents should also act where it is possible to instill discipline in their children.
Nowadays, western culture has brought unacceptable practices in most Namibians, especially in children of tender age.