adminreach home at Mupinga Village in Tshovani communal lands with a 10kg packet of mealie-meal to prepare supper.
As he weaves his way through the flat plains of Chikombedzi to reach home before sunset, his thoughts are also increasingly preoccupied with the impending task of tracing his herd of cattle that have wandered in the Mopane woodlands where they thrive on the trees’ highly nutritious leaves.
Mr Helani Maluleke slumps into a deep depression meditating and ruing why he allowed his 15-year-old son to abandon school at Hlanganani Secondary school to illegally cross the border through the crocodile-infested Limpopo River into South Africa to look for employment.
After crippling successive droughts that saw his family harvesting virtually nothing for an entire decade, Mr Maluleke granted his only son’s request to join the great trek down south to look for a job.
The reasoning was the teenager would easily get a job and start sending money back home just like other boys in the area.
However the decision exposed him as without any additional manpower, Mr Maluleke is left with such mundane responsibilities of tending cattle and other homestead chores.
The strain is now taking a toll on him as he is finding it difficult to cope with the seemingly pressing tasks at hand.
However, he takes solace from the fact that hundreds of men of his age in Tshovani communal lands in Chikombedzi are in a similar predicament.
Young boys from the area have been streaming into South Africa in search of jobs on the farms.
The Great Trek to South Africa among boys of schoolgoing age in southern parts of Chiredzi has already resulted in a massive drop in enrolment at most schools in the district raising fears that thousands more might prematurely quit school in search of “greener” pastures.
Perennial droughts coupled with lack of employment opportunities that engender despair among young people in the arid Chikombedzi area have been cited as push factors.
Historical and cultural links between the Shangani people of Chikombedzi and most tribes in South Africa have also been partly blamed for making most young people in Chiredzi shun home and quit school prematurely to seek jobs in Egoli or place of Gold as South Africa is affectionately called.
Masvingo provincial education director Mrs Clara Dube conceded that the flight of young people to South Africa was hampering her ministry’s efforts to bring access to education to the doorsteps of many, especially young people, in southern Chiredzi.
Mrs Dube said her ministry was concerned with the drop in enrolment at most schools in Chiredzi district noting that most of those leaving school to cross the border into South Africa were in the 14-plus age group.
“We have noticed a situation where young people are leaving schools soon after finishing their primary education or midway into secondary school to look for menial jobs in South Africa. Areas worst affected are those near the border with South Africa such as Gezani, Tshovani, and Sengwe communal lands and we are very concerned with this disturbing trend,” said Mrs Dube.
The Masvingo provincial education director said poverty amongst most families in the district was also driving young people to abandon schools and look for jobs in South Africa so that they can remit something back home to their parents.
Government through the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture introduced feeding schemes and expanded the Basic Education Assistance Model, which the state uses to assist poor children with fees payment, as a way of arresting the withdrawal of young people from school.
“We are trying to come up with measures to arrest the drop in enrolment at schools in southern Chiredzi district and amongst some of the measures that we have come up with are feeding schemes at schools and expanding the Beam programme so that w e lure young people to remain at school,” she said.
Preliminary estimates revealed that during peak months about 100 young people leave school in southern Chiredzi every month to cross the border into South Africa, the bulk of them illegally in search of jobs.
Mrs Dube concedes there is an urgent need for Government to create economic conditions that will make young people in southern Chiredzi want to stay in the area and continue with education.
A school dropout George Kasilani (15) of Machoka Village in the area concurred with Mrs Dube saying there were no economic opportunities in Chiredzi, a situation that he says has left many young people disillusioned and thinking of trekking to South Africa for employment.
“There are virtually no economic opportunities here, because virtually everything is down here, no rains and we experience drought every year and roads and other infrastructure are dilapidated that there is virtually nothing of economic value that a young person can do economically.
Apart from cane cutting in the sugarcane plantations there is virtually nothing to do for the school graduates other than crossing the border to South Africa where chances of employment are high,” said Kasilani.
Chief Tshovani, Mr Mhlausi Mundawu concurred with Kasilani’s claims saying most young people have left southern Chiredzi for South Africa because the area had virtually no economic opportunities which young people can tap into.
Chief Tshovani said the issue of young people abandoning school to seek employment in neighbouring South Africa, had always been a persistent problem in the area but expressed concern that the scale of school dropouts had alarmingly grown over the past few years probably due to worsening economic conditions.
He conceded that most areas in southern Chiredzi were bereft of young people with homesteads in the area now being manned by the elderly and very young people in early primary education.
“The flight of young people from here to South Africa is a perennially problem but of greater concern to us now is that more and more young people are increasingly getting disillusioned and leaving school to secure jobs down there in South Africa.
“It is now every young man’s dream to go and work in mines and farms so that at the end of the year he comes back with a bicycle to show off with others. Unfortunately those families that have children that has made it downside are acting as baits for the children who are dreaming bid once they get to the other side of the Limpopo,” said Chief Tshovani.
He blamed lack of economic opportunities in the area for causing the Great Trek down south saying the trend would continue as long as young people in the area do not see windows of economic opportunities.
“Most of the homesteads here are manned by the elderly and very young people in lower primary school, there are no young men or boys here.
“Once a boy feels that he is man enough, the next thing is that he will be on his way to South Africa only to be seen at the end of the year.
“The solution to the trend lies in creating new economic opportunities for these young people so that they see a future in their own area after leaving school,” said Chief Tshovani.
Plagued by paralysing droughts, southern parts of Chiredzi will continue to lose the energetic young men, most of whom believe that the only way to reach the Promised Land-economically, is join the Great Trek in their prime lives.
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