EDITORIAL
When life gives lemons , make lemonade, they say.
What an irony!
Many say such as if a life of lemonade is anything enjoyable.
But these are the realities that we live with everyday.
It is very difficult for a person who lives in opulence and only dreams of their next million to understand the pain of not having a dollar in your pocket for a good two weeks.
When we talk of poverty and unemployment many might think these are just statistics but reality is there are families behind these figures.
There are fathers and mothers who have to bear the agony of looking at their families and still go to bed without chewing anything.
This week we have a story of a young unemployed man who walks day in day out to guard cars in the Central Business District.
His earnings are a measly N$40 to N$50.
In the chase vein the city creams off a good N$2.9 million annually for the same job.
Mind you that N$40 is on a good day , but in reality he might as well head home with nothing.
He is only but one of the many Namibians who continue to toil in the streets without the prospect of getting a job.
Unemployment is a real cancer in our society.
It is a bad cancer that is eating away at our youth and everyday. They wilt into depression and other social challenges.
They definitely need answers from our policy makers, and they need them fast.
It is even disheartening that for this poor unfortunate man who walks a good 10 to 15 kilometres to town everyday to look for the next meal, he must compete with the corporates that have taken over his parking slot.
In such situations one wonders if these young people can not be organised in some sort of cooperatives and encouraged to register close cooperations.
Surely these close corporations can be recipients of such parking tenders in town.
They do it anyway.
Only that they have been doing it informally.
If there was ever a time for the city fathers to do business with conscience , perhaps this is it.
Think outside the box, find the basics that these youth can do with ease.
Surely directing cars and making sure they are securely parked is one of them.
Until we align solutions to such societal challenges like unemployment with reality on the ground it will continue to be a hard knock life for these young people.
COMMENTS