Faith Without Deeds – Gabriel Kwanja

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FAITH WITHOUT DEEDS
By Gabriel Kwanja 15/03/2010
Monday 15th March 2010

Last week was marked by two very important days which are International Women’s day celebrated on Monday 08 March 2010 under a theme ‘Equal Rights, Equal opportunities, Progress for all’ and Youth day celebrated on Friday 12 of March 2010.

The two celebrations are very important, hence there is need for the two to work together for them to succeed in their fight for justice.

The women are fighting for gender equality. This fight has been there longer than imagined, my worry is the slowness it has taken to bring out required results and time it will take for us to say they are there. Fight for justice can never be won without action.

Action is a key weapon to success in any battle. A lot of fights are said to have been won without using machine guns or throwing stones.

An outstanding example is Mahatma Gandhi who believed in nonviolence and his quotes are, ‘there are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for’.

It is a noble call for every patriotic man and woman to get involved.

This right is one we are born with, nature given. If our life is in danger from violence whether verbally or physically, every means of security to our safety should be employed. This is inclusive both sexes.

Talking alone will never yield desired results, women should now start living the talk. Among women there is no team work, no team players and less team leaders.

The difference with men is that what our forefathers left we have embraced and fostered, that’s action and less talk.

This fight is definitely dealing with the misconception we have conceived in our past.

You can take the people out of the ghetto, but if you have not taken the ghetto out of their minds you achieve nothing.

The best method would be to start with the youth by framing their minds into a gender balanced environment, this demands consented efforts. The fight is real today, but let us fight for tomorrow, we need to engage the youths who are actually the future leaders.

These are supposed to be taken off the hook of discrimination. Department for International Development have always said,’ Poverty will not come to an end until women have equal rights with men.

The world is unequal and it is most unequal for women and girls. Most of the poorest people in the world are women and part of what makes them poor is the discrimination they face purely because of their gender’.

The youths cry for recognition in our society because they are future leaders. They feel neglected, because less is being done to transform our community to benefit every one.

Every year people complete grade twelve (12), from colleges and universities students graduate, but seriously the are less employment opportunities as compared to what schools, colleges and universities are able to produce.

President Banda summoned Kenneth Chipungu the Minister of Sport, Youth and Child Development during this year’s Youth day to create more Youth Development Centers of which at the moment we are only talking about less than 16 centers the whole country.

They are more concentrated on survival skills for school drop out that is the grade seven, nine and twelve.

What is being offered to them is Brick laying, Panel Beating, Shoe making, Carpentry among other. When these students graduate they have to find capital to run their businesses which is a small scale and face competition with already established markets.

Many would argue that loans are accessible, but collateral is one area to be looked at seriously how youth can be assisted.

Our Governments don’t do justice to the youths in that every leader that takes office comes with different policies lacking continuity from the previous one. If this country is to achieve meaningful development the tendering of youths should be at every level.

The major problem why we are not achieving justice for women and youths is lip service.

Women who lead the fight for gender equality leave speeches and words on the platforms and go back home and continue living the old life style.

They are a lot of preachers who say do what I say not what I do. Fear should be fought because with fear you can never achieve anything. Every one involved in the fight for justice should be courageous to take up the challenges of leadership.

We all know that nature has provided for us men and women differently in terms of conceiving or falling pregnant, but other areas should not be limited to men or women.

A woman should be able to do what a man can like men do what women can do. What gives a person authority is willingness to take up responsibility and this is one area women folks are passive.

The issue of house wife has negative impact on the fight for gender balance and also on our economy’s development; every one should rise to the challenge of developing this nation.

Zambia is for all and justice also is for all. One Zambia One Nation. Everyone should take up the risk to enjoy the benefits of our mother Zambia.

The issue of early marriages should be addressed seriously among our communities, its leads to lack of productive for our nation and a big disadvantage on the fight for justice.

The people who are involved in this at later stage become content and accept less. Women will say a man is a man. Get involved in this gender fight and see if you get marriage.

According to HODI a non governmental organization said the effect of early marriages could be long lasting and extends beyond physical health, human rights and psychology, forced sexual intercourse, denial of freedom and domestic violence are frequent and how can one contribute to development with such suffering.

The government needs to come up with good policies to allow children to go to school without difficulties to access education and should have stiffer punishment to parents and boys who lead girls into early marriage or make them pregnant.

We need more educated girls and boys for our future.

The country needs more public and private schools, colleges and universities.

The government needs to have deliberate policies on the creation of job opportunities to cater for all levels of our society and to reduce levels of unemployment.

We need a free market for those that are in business.