Youth should stop destructive behaviour

YOUNG people in Namibia and other African countries account for over half of the population and the energies of the youth should be harnessed to build a better future, a Swapo backbencher said in Parliament last week.

Reggie Diergaardt urged the youth to ‘exchange their knives and guns for calculators and computers and the shopping malls and clubs for institutions of learning’.’The youth should utilise their energy to build instead to destroy and to change their expensive American branded clothes and shoes for school uniforms. If you want to be successfully doing this, you need a change in attitude, rethink your position, because what pollutes you are destructive activities like substance abuse, vileness, greed and slander, back-biting, deceit, pride and every form of wickedness,’ Diergaardt said.Recreation should be there too, but in a positive way, he added. ‘My humble request to the youth is let us humbly pledge every day to do what is right and to be fired by our idealism for others and what we can render to our communities,’ Diergaardt said.Chief Justus Garoëb of the UDF praised Government for again making education for the youth the top priority in the new National Budget with an allocation of N$2,5 billion. ‘It is however disappointing that the schools the rural areas of the Erongo, Omaheke and Kunene regions recommended for urgent renovations do again not feature [in the budget]. We cannot expect our youth to do effective learning under such harsh conditions, this will leave many young Namibians lacking skills,’ the Chief criticised.