Parents of imbibing minors meet First Lady for candid discussions on child welfare
. . . Promise to make amends, look after children
IT was a soul-searching meeting with the hallmarks of warmth when First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa sat down for a first-of-its-kind motherly talk with parents and children who hogged the limelight for the wrong reasons when they were caught on video while taking alcohol at Juru Growth Point and in Mbare, Harare, during the festive season.
Sitting on reed mats, Dr Mnangagwa and her counselling team drawn from all the country’s provinces, sought to understand what really transpired and map a positive way forward.
She met the children and their parents separately and afforded both parties a chance to express themselves freely as part of her solutions-based approach to issues.
It emerged that most of the affected children’s parents were commercial sex workers, single mothers and beer drinkers who openly admitted to not having time with their children.
They, however, undertook to change their ways. Some of them openly said even when their children returned from town in the evening, they did not notice anything amiss or smell alcohol on them since they (parents) were also heavily under the influence of alcohol.
On the other hand, the way the children initially responded to questions and carried themselves before elders showed lack of respect, but at the end of the day, they had improved significantly after a session with the First Lady and her team.
To remove tension and ensure the children could narrate what happened, the First Lady played games with them and started asking them questions later.
The children from Mbare said when they bought the beers from an illegal seller, they freely walked from Mbare to town holding the bottles and people would ignore them.
The minors who were filmed on New Year’s Eve drinking beer at Juru Growth Point told the First Lady that a certain man encouraged them to continue drinking and urging the young girls to dance as he recorded for reasons best known to him.
This irked the mother of the nation, who then emphasised that it was everyone’s responsibility to look after children.
She said when they walked all the way to town exposing the beer bottles, adults along the way should have taken action.
Also as seen on the video, many people passed by the children, going about their businesses when the minors from Mbare were drinking beer.
No one tried to take it away from them. An empowerment champion, Dr Mnangagwa asked the women the kind of projects they intended to venture into so that she could assist them, and the group from Mbare pointed at hardware and retail, while those from Murewa chose detergent-making and poultry.
Amai Mnangagwa engaged the Zimbabwe Women’s Microfinance Bank for loans and the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Affairs to implement and oversee the projects while working with her office.
She urged the women to work in groups and have financial discipline, saying she wanted the projects to flourish.
“Today we have come to meet as mothers to discuss freely. It is not my issue alone, but it involves every one of us, hence the need to share ideas. No one is being blamed here but we are fixing a challenge in line with our cultural norms and values. Traditional chiefs are here and so are our religious leaders and social commentators, including those from the four corners of the country,” the First Lady said.
“I stand before you as a mother, grandmother, aunt, so the name First Lady is just a title but we are the same. We want the Lord to bless our meeting as women where we teach one another and we want these kinds of meetings to be regular. A child belongs to all of us and is yours only when still in your tummy.
“As women, are we open to have our child counselled by others? As a mother you have to listen to others because you are the last person to know what your child will be doing, so it is important to listen to others. We have built a sound relationship as mothers from today. So, today we have come with cases that occurred on December 25 on December 31, 2023, and we said as mothers we cannot fold our hands as our children get ruined. We call upon God to intervene. As mothers, we are all free to discuss and learn from one another because these are our children collectively. The children might have escaped our watchful eyes, but we want to get hold of them and correct them. We saw children falling in a drunken stupor with big bottles. No one is being arrested; you have come to your mother,” the mother of the nation said, before giving the floor to the mothers to tell their stories.
The Mbare mother of a nine-year-old and a four-year-old child who were seen drinking poured her heart out.
“On Christmas Day, my children bathed and dressed up as I was going about my domestic chores. They said they intended to visit their friends and I gave them US$1 each, not knowing they had a trick up their sleeves. They returned around 6pm, but they acted normal not showing any signs of mischief. The one who was captured falling with a bottle is my child and I heard from people after the video circulated because when they returned home, I did not notice anything amiss. I am thankful Amai for the time you gave us to discuss with you freely. We gave children money thinking we had done the best for Christmas, yet they were ahead of us,” she said.
A grandmother to one of the children gave her insights into what happened.
“My grandson was given money by his father on Christmas Day and went out to meet his friends where they bought beer from Block 4 and went to town drinking. My grandson said they had planned this before Christmas,” she said dejectedly.