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Naledi Lindarose Maunganidze-Madzara
Correspondent
We are only left with today and tomorrow for us, as Zimbabwe’s youths, to troop to our respective polling stations to cast our votes for none other than President Mnangagwa and all Zanu PF candidates at their different levels.
Hey guys! There are far too many reasons why, we, as youths should cast our votes in numbers for President Mnangagwa.
In my previous articles that appeared in this newspaper, I touched on the empowerment side, on how President Mnangagwa has been making sure that youths are empowered and have a role to play in the economy, politics and other facets of society.
It is not easy to find such a President who has the youths at heart and voting for him on Wednesday will ensure the roll-out of more such programmes in his next term.
When President Mnangagwa says no one and no place will be left behind, he really means it.
No one refers to all of us as youths, and no place means wherever you are, his empowerment programmes will touch your lives.
As the Secretary for Gender and Culture in the Zanu PF Youth League and a candidate for the youth quota for Masvingo province, I have witnessed first hand how President Mnangagwa invests a lot in young people.
If you carefully followed his campaign messages at provincial star rallies for this election, I am sure you will agree with me that none of the rallies would end without him talking about youths.
In fact, President Mnangagwa reserved a huge chunk of his speech to talk about young people.
He would talk with so much passion and pride when he referred to the young people as “our young boys and girls at universities” and “our youths throughout the country”.
There is no doubt that while the President sees the future in us as the youths, he does not want us to wait for that future to start contributing and benefiting from our country.
He wants us to contribute now and get involved in all facets of the country as youths, and sit at the highest round-tables of decision making in our different spheres.
He wants the young people to make money, and that is why he has introduced youths quotas in various sectors.
But this article wants to talk about how President Mnangagwa is vehemently opposed to the abuse of young people and children.
Since he came into power in 2017, he has been on a crusade to make sure that children and young people are protected.
During the launch of the 29th Junior Parliament Session and the Revised National Youth Policy at State House, President Mnangagwa announced that special courts to handle cases of child abuse were being set up.
This came as the President is pressing forward with efforts to eliminate child marriages and other harmful practices against children and young people.
This move showed that our President is committed to making sure that justice is delivered for children who would have been violated.
President Mnangagwa wants children and young people to be protected because they are vulnerable and if they are exposed to abuse they will not realise their full potential.
“Stand-alone children friendly courts are being set up within our main court systems. The fight against child abuse, child marriages and other harmful practices is being scaled up with perpetrators of crime against children receiving deterrent penalties and sentences,” he said at the event.
Even in schools, President Mnangagwa has intervened to warn school authorities to stop all forms of abuse and discrimination.
The President condemned the system whereby school authorities would send away children from learning institutions for non-payment of fees, and banned the system.
Instead, the school authorities should have a beef with parents who are responsible for paying the school fees.
This move protected a lot of young people who were now failing to access education because of non-payment of schools fees.
Yet in most cases when the school authorities sat down with the parents, they discussed payment plans and other means to meeting the school fees.
In the end, the school fees that were a reason to deny youths education were now being paid, there was just lack of communication and negotiation between the two parties.
After realising the negligence of some of our parents in their duty to ensure young people are looked after well so that they do not lose direction, President Mnangagwa reminded parents of their responsibilities over us by signing into law the Children’s Amendment Act.
This Act says parents or a guardian can be charged and convicted of an offence that a child commits, if it is proven that they did not take reasonable steps to stop the child from committing the offence.
This is a huge step in ensuring that young people are not left alone to go astray, but are guided by their parents and guardians for them to grow up as responsible citizens ready to take advantage of opportunities being availed by the Second Republic.
Then when it comes to drugs and substance abuse, you can agree with me, young people, that President Mnangagwa has stood out against this damaging habit.
Whenever he gives a speech, President Mnangagwa makes sure he speaks without fear or favour against drug abuse by the youths.
He also takes the opportunity to remind those who supply these drugs, who in most of these case are adults, that the law will not spare them.
During his presidential star rallies for this election, many of you will remember his signature line ” . . . tigosiyira here nyika kuvanhu vaka sticker”, a reminder to us youths that we have to stand up to our responsibilities by desisting from doing drugs.
President Mnangagwa has clearly given us as youths a place in the future to express ourselves in whatever way we can to contribute and benefit from the development of our country, but he is worried we may not be able to stand up to the task because of drugs.
In pursuit of that, President Mnangagwa has made it clear he is not happy with the way drugs are being abused by young people and his government is reviewing the legal framework on dangerous drugs and illicit substances.
The aim is to come up with deterrent sentences on convicted persons who often prey on young people with the dangerous and banned substances.
The statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO) 2019 report are not pleasing at all. The report revealed that Zimbabwe has the highest rate of 15 to 19-year-olds engaging in heavy “episodic drinking” in Africa, with 70.7 percent of males and 55.5 percent of females participating. What is more depressing is that among this age group are those involved in drug dealing and drug use.
It is important for us young people to desist from drugs at all costs, which are essentially poisons, with a small amount taken acting as a stimulant for wanting more.
There we are young people. We can see that President Mnangagwa did not rest concerning our issues, he has been at the forefront of making sure we live fruitful lives.
The President is the leader of our ruling party, Zanu PF, he is the leader of our country, as a result he knows what is in store for us as youths.
President Mnangagwa does not want us to be left behind when it comes to enjoying the fruits of being an upper middle income society come 2030.
He equally does not want us to lose now as we build towards 2030, with various programmes and projects already targeting the young people. The best we can do come Wednesday is to return this favour by overwhelmingly voting for President Mnangagwa, Zanu PF candidates for the National Assembly and the party’s ward candidates.
l Naledi Lindarose Maunganidze-Madzara is the Zanu PF Secretary for Gender and Culture in the Youth League and a candidate for the National Asembly youth quota representing Masvingo.
Online Reporter