By Amos Thembo
As children grow up, they encounter a lot of challenges that need life skills. Life skills are abilities that enable a person overcome day-to-day challenges. These have been absent among the rural children thus failing to overcome a plethora of life challenges that leave them between a hard place and rock. Among the life skills to emphasize are self-awareness, problem solving, critical thinking, self control and self-esteem among others.
Self-esteem is self-worth and value one attaches to him or herself. One may have high or low Self-esteem. High self-esteem among people is when they have high respect for themselves and other people. They refrain from use of abusive language and being arrogant towards others. Children with high self-esteem are contented with who they are and accept themselves. They have a belief in self-drive as people with a mission to accomplish. Care givers and parents need to make children and teens forward thinkers and make them have a feeling of taking control of things concerning them.
Low self-esteem among children is when they do not have self-respect and respect for others. They are arrogant and never courteous even after making mistakes. This has resulted into dubious behaviors in communities. Some parents get demoralized with these behaviors and end up giving up on supporting such children.
The absence of knowledge about life skills among young girls has given chance to boys and old men to take advantage of their ignorance and vulnerability. They decoy them into having sex using myths that expose them to early pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Some of these common myths in rural areas are: 1. When a girl keeps her virginity for so long, she can never give birth. 2. When you have sex using a condom, it is like eating a sweet wrapped in a kavera (polythene bag) thus never sweet. 3. Bare Sex makes a young girl grow huge buttocks.
According to Musoki Farida from Mbunga village, who was a beneficiary of our Right to Education Project narrates to us her ordeal during lockdown.
“My name is Musoki Farida. I was a senior 2 student at MT. Rwenzori Girls Secondary School before lockdown. I was lured into early sex by my boyfriend during lockdown. He deceived me that if I remain a virgin girl until marriage, I will never give birth at old age. I feared and allowed him to save me from not having children in future. After two months, I realized that I am pregnant. I escaped from our home and went to the boy’s home. I am sick and need to go to the hospital for checkup but he says there is no money. It’s now two months without any treatment and checkup”… She burst into tears.
Contemporarily, increasing early pregnancies and marriages, elopements and drug abuse among young people in rural areas during Covid 19 lockdown is attributed to absence of these life skills. Imparting life skills into children and teens will enable them have a bright tomorrow.