Dear Editor,
As a youth leader with over twenty five years of experience I hereby make an urgent appeal to the Ministry of Education to review their current practice of allowing school children especially young females to attend regional cricket matches, Mash competition and other events. This appeal comes due to the total breakdown of moral attitudes among our youths who seem not to remember that as schoolchildren their main goal should be to obtain an education.
These social events and cricket matches are just an opportunity for our youths to show off to the world just how morally backward we have become. It is common place to see schoolchildren in uniform getting involved in activities that would make some adults blush. Young female students could be seen with beers in their hands, smoking cigarettes and some of them even become totally drunk from too much liquor. Male students are outdoing each other to see who can drink the more beers, smoke the most cigarettes and attract the most females. Sometimes it is shameful to walk around a venue as one gets the feeling that you are in a cinema watching an x-rated movie with couples in school uniform all over the place.
In my days in school, we used to attend under the supervision of teachers who took us in and out of the venue together and made sure that our behaviour was of the highest standard. Mr. Editor, one is left to wonder how this present generation can become the leaders of tomorrow. The Ministry of Education has to find some way to have tighter control and they can start by looking at some of their own young male teachers who encourage this behaviour. In broad daylight we can observe young male teachers drinking beers with their uniformed students and some are even involved in relationships with their students. No student would ever respect a teacher who knocks glasses with him or is his liming partner. The Ministry must not allow schools to make their athletics events into a bubble session. I have observed big boom boxes at school sports and even the selling of alcoholic beverages. School Sports is about producing sportsmen and women so why do we need loud music or liquor around. Surely, our students’ moral upbringing is more important than a few dollars for the school’s PTA.
Lately, also, there have been numerous reports of activities among young females attending schools in the Berbice area. I have personally counselled several schoolgirls on their sexual activities on the pleading of their parents and they all have the same answer, their peers forced them to do it. It seems that in Guyana it is a crime for young girls to be a virgin at 16 years. To be a virgin, they were told, is not for today’s world and as such to fit in the crowd, most young girls get involved against their better judgment. Unless Guyana as a country can stop this slide into darkness our future is doomed. We have to get our youths to understand that education is the key to success and that discipline, respect, commitment and a strong faith in God is the way to go. We have to teach them that drugs are dangerous to their bodies, that there would be a correct time for sexual activities and that being a rude boy or a fashionable female does not make you successful in life.
The road to changing this slide would be difficult but it can be done with sheer hard work and dedication. All of us as parents, politicians, youth leaders, teachers, religious leaders and sports leaders can play a part by dedicating a little more of ourselves to the task. Politicians should stop paying lip service to youths and the leaders of the future and start teaching them right from wrong and setting personal examples for them to follow. Too many of our youths view religious leaders as men out to get rich and as such do not respect them. Gone are the days when a priest’s words or advice was weighted in gold.
Parents can assist by having more control over their children’s spare time and by encouraging them in their educational pursuits. The best example a child can get is from his/her parents and as such every effort should be made to start proper training from home. A special appeal must also be made to all youth and sports leaders to work harder to provide more opportunities for youths and to lead by example.
Too many of our sport leaders just hold on to positions for the glory it brings to them with no interest in assisting youths. We can create miracles if we offer alternatives for our youths to stay off the road. If we offer sports and culture as an alternative to each child along with proper guidance and advice I am quite certain that we can produce many more Sarwans, Chanderpauls, Eddy Grants and Adrian Dutchins.
A final advice for my fellow youth leaders in Guyana. We can all do much more for our youths if only we dedicate a little bit more of our time. Let us plan more programmes for them, let us share our personal experience with them to assist them to not commit the mistakes we may have made and let us be role models for them to follow. We cannot be youth leaders if we do the same things in front of them what we tell them not to do. We cannot tell them stay off alcohol if we consume it ourselves, we cannot tell them to say no to drugs if we use it, we cannot tell to say yes to education if we do not believe that education is the key to success and we cannot tell them to be respectful to us if we are not respectful to them. We have to teach them by setting an example and together we can all do it.
Yours faithfully,
Hilbert Foster
Secretary/CEO of Rose Hall Town
Youth and Sports Club
