Africa-Press – Botswana. First Lady, Ms Neo Masisi has urged Bobonong community to help find solutions to some problems she identified as bedeviling the country and harming especially young people the most, with a question and a call to action.
Towards the end of her address during a kgotla meeting in Bobobong, Friday, with an overwhelming throng of senior citizens, aged 65 years and above, Ms Masisi identified HIV, illicit drugs and gender-based violence as some the troubling matters that required all to help devise enduring solutions to.
“I leave you with this question and I ask that you proliferate it to your children that, how can we tap into strong family foundations to foster perdurable solutions on; HIV, especially amongst the youth, and illicit drugs that continually ravage the lives of young people as well as gender-based violence?” asked the First Lady as she left the senior citizens with some food of thought.
Ms Masisi who engaged and consulted the pensioners on the challenges in question said that she started her campaign, in 2019, with Dipalametse Campaign which sought to address HIV and related issues.
She then led the campaign against GBV and child abuse in 2020.
In the process of exhausting all possible avenues to alleviating the societal ills with ultimate intentions of eradicating them, Ms Masisi met with young people, dikgosi and many Batswana and organisations across all spectrums to facilitate solutions and interventions.
Last year, the First Lady engaged in tackling drug abuse and illicit drugs which are reportedly ruining the lives of young people.
In so doing she engaged with parents to determine the root cause of the problem.
Speaking before the First Lady, Superintendent Petrus Nkgetsi had indicated that majority, if not all, of the illicit drugs originated from outside the country and peddled in by Batswana.
He said that the situation had gotten so dire that even some seven year olds at primary schools were using drugs. Some are reportedly hooked.
Post using drugs, users and or addicts reportedly lack care in their sexual encounters and end up contracting HIV amongst other sexual transmitted diseases, Supt Nkgetsi had said.
It was against this backdrop that the First Lady called on parents especially to initiate talks around illicit drugs and drug abuse to prevent young children falling prey to drug mules.
While speaking with young people, Ms Masisi said, it was clear that senior citizens were equivocal in their messaging of sexual matters and resultantly failed to communicate.
“We must raise resilient children who’re grounded,” said Ms Masisi adding that there was an immediate need to dissect Children’s Act so as to demystify some perception held by some parents.
At the same meeting, attendants expressed that some children had unsupervised and unlimited access to social media and television where they were exposed to material above their age brackets.
Also, children were reportedly neglected and left to their own devices, a move said to be a beacon for lurking vultures to pounce on innocent kids and abuse them sexually.
“Growing up we stayed with our parents, but these days, parents stay far away from their children and thereby leaving the latter to their own devices,” said Ms Constance Konyana who called on parents to keep a hawk eye on their children.
Ms Hildah Nkgowe alleged that drug are sold by very powerful people and therefore appealed to Ms Masisi to relay her plea to President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi to uproot illicit drugs.
“What kind of society are we breeding?” she asked rather rhetorically.
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