Wake-up call for Langa
LANGA, the first black African township in Cape Town, which is renowned for producing jazz musicians, actors, soccer, rugby and cricket legends for decades, is in crisis.
Today, many Langa teenagers who happened to be school dropouts , join gangsters putting this community under indescribable stress.
Some Langa teenagers dropped out of school to form or join gangs.
There have already been four teenage lives lost between November and late December.
The latest victim was 18-year-old Ayanda Vava who was shot and stabbed to death on December 26 and was laid to rest on Saturday in Langa.
It is of high concern that, on June 9, 2011 the then finance minister Trevor Manuel released a document and vision statement for 2030 at a media briefing in Parliament.
It called for public comment on nine key problems – poor education, divided communities, uneven public service performance, unsustainable, resource-intensive economy, high disease burden, unemployment, existing spatial pattens, crumbling infrastructure and corruption).
As a visionary, I fully supported the National Planning Commission concept of 2030.
However, we now have to deal with teen school dropouts, teen gangsters, teen murderers and juvenile delinquency. We have respected Langa community (elders, middle-aged and youth, tourists and business investors to protect.
This is a wake-up call to the Langa community, based on the National Planning Commission objectives on divided communities. We must take responsibility for proper parenting, strong leadership and work towards a united community. We have to explain to our teens what made us who we are today, which was to respect our elders, strive for education and participate in sport.
Only if we put strong emphasis on these areas, with the assistance of the National Planning Commission, can we get these teenagers, who recently dropped out of school because of fears of gangsters, back to school.
I have a strong motivation to work with the community and the commission to ensure that there is no possibility of teen school dropouts, because I have identified this as a root cause of crime.
As parents, it is our responsibility to protect a child’s education and develop the child from the primary to the higher level of education. This will ensure that a child is fully committed to his/her education and is trained to grasp the essence of education.
With this vision 2030 will give us a positive feedback. I am not asking what my country does for me butwhat I can do for my country.
THABO MATISO
Langa