This article was published in The Citizen Newspaper, Tanzania on Sept. 17th, 2024. Shimbo Pastory The idea of education being…

Youthfulness comes with the zeal for growth and progress; the enthusiasm of the youth can be harnessed and directed towards creating a more just and peaceful society. Moreover, the youth themselves are oftentimes the target of these acts of injustices.

There have been extreme cases of cruelty done to children by parents and guardians in the course of behavioural correction. Such extreme or repeated infliction of pain has a strong impact in the life of the young persons. While ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ has survived to be an unwritten parenting principle, it is not the only thing that parents should offer to their children. Cruelty does not decrease resistance to change of behaviour. It has more potentiality to do the opposite, making it almost impossible to achieve the desired result.

The sociopolitical reality of all free and democratic states, like Tanzania, is hinged on a collaborative relationship between the people and those chosen to be leaders. Underlying this is the unity in the mind of the people, whose vision is(ideally) carried out by the leaders.

As such, leadership, at all levels, should have as its target, fulfilling the vision of the people, which is already implied, even when the leader employs his or her personal creativity.

The global diversity of cultures and heritage makes for an unimaginable learning corpus which no human person can exhaust.  As such, a better starting point of discussing appreciation of cultural heritage is appreciation of culture itself.

The practice of having realistic plans and goals helps us to remain focused and to grow. Our resources, be it time, money, property, etc. can only be properly managed with clear plans and goals, otherwise they are all at risk of going to waste.

In many African countries and cultures, the biased thinking that a child cannot be brought up to be disciplined without being caned and physically punished is still flourishing. We need to join hands to end torture in children.

Short of appropriate limits, raising young people would become a dangerous “all-join” as Nigerians would say; A situation where everything is allowed, to any extent desired by the parts involved, for any reason, anywhere, and at any time. But this is not how life works.

Open spaces greatly enrich the lives of city dwellers, affording them some quiet, cool air, breathing space to relax and walk, and a good outdoor environment for children to play freely. Cities should not be full of structures, buildings, businesses and service facilities all over. Open spaces with trees and green hugely contribute to the lives of the people and the value of the environment and enable interaction with nature.

Every story and history has a storyteller (narrator) who oftentimes influences the story based on their point of view. As such learning one’s history as written by another, as in this case, the history of the people of Africa as written by non-African people of Europe and America, endangers the integrity of the story being told, as these groups have had a contention in the past which has left behind deep wounds.