GOOD GONE DAYS

The youth are leaders of tomorrow, people were made to embrace. Now the direction seems to have changed, slightly though, taking a rather popular and smart one to most young individuals: the youth are leaders of today. But some, wondering with the status quo, have asked innocently yet thought provokingly: which today? Good question.

Many are mentalities convicted in the belief that whenever citizens are to contribute to national development, the role of youths should not be all that earth-shattering, easy to point at. They must be similar minds, probably, deeply lost in some fruitless sea that keeps on demanding ten years of work experience from three hundred thousand fresh graduates who are baked annually, ready to sweat for countable thirty five thousand available employment opportunities. Pathetic.

Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the first president of Malawi, to an enviable extent, had an effective and realistic approach on citizens’ contribution to national development. And, too, it was sustainable.

His systematic way of organizing and making youthful citizens contribute to national development through Youth Weeks, speaks a point, if not four. The beauty of this old-time practice can barely be valued without praising a heart of patriotism and a spirit of warm communalism it instilled in most Malawians as opposed to some cold individualistic living. And life then, elders concur, was good.

In spicing such contributions’ efficiency, the role that was being played by the Malawi Young Pioneers (MYPs) can only sinfully be overlooked. Kamuzu seemed to have known already, subscribed to, and applied the wisdom behind the adage that ‘books and friends should be few but good’. This should be within his line of thinking in introducing the MYPs. No other structure in the country was in any way like that of MYPs. It was the only one, with its functions purportedly vital although some abuses stand registered on their ticket.

Also relevant were political structures that were spread allover the country at grassroots levels. There were political figures in every locality responsible for identifying and organizing the youths in readiness for the anticipated week.

The Youth Week was initially a week characterized by intensive work of the youths at community levels in ensuring a hygienic look of their communities. Even much to esteem is that the week was also the time when the elderly and the needy were given a warm technical hand wherever necessary.

Isaac Zumba has witnessed sixty-four Christmas celebrations on this planet. He was born and has grown up in Chilobwe Township, T /A Kapeni in Blantyre. He saw and experienced all this: “With coordinated efforts of community political structures, the MYPs used to visit various areas national wide leading the youths in making their week a success.

“These were usually equipped with a range of technical expertise such as that of bricklaying, construction, carpentry and the like”.

In Zumba’s narration, one could only long for a taste of those days, his good gone days that still stand to him estimable: “During such a period, wanting and leaky houses of the elderly and other disadvantaged groups were respectively renovated and well roofed by the youths.

“Communities were well cleared, teacher houses built, and school blocks that were in their last legs erected. All was done by the youths in proving their vigilance and strengths while contributing to the development of their country”.

That also taught the youths skills so helpful in their everyday living. It also instilled in them a patriotic mind particularly through such direct contributions to their country’s social development.

Today, some problems that are faced in our schools and localities would not be there if similar organized weeks were in practice.

Leafing through the findings of the study conducted by Link for Education Governance (LEG), one can hardly wait to appreciate how good the Youth Week was. The study which sampled out twelve education districts and concentrated on 36 primary schools, found out that only 30% of teachers are accommodated by the schools while 43% are renting, and 27% staying in own houses.

Shortage of teacher-houses is a shared problem in our schools. Most communities have been made to wait for government to build them enough houses for teachers. Citizens also seem to shoulder no responsibility of helping the government in fulfilling such facilities our societies need.

All these happen when such communities are full of technically competent strong young men who can easily solve such community problems in an old Youth Week way.

The elderly are one needy group that is left alone helplessly and hopelessly. Every rainy season haunts a number of them as it reminds them of longest sleepless nights they had in the similar previous season due to their leaky roofs.

There is no one to help them. They have no strength to climb up the hills, mow grass and thatch their huts well. They wish they could become old in those good gone days of Youth Weeks when the youths would do all that for them, making this Warm Heart of Africa a rather better place to live.