WE NEED A VOICE!

Sir,

I was marveling through democracy according to the world’s greatest mind Albert Einstein and I tried to relate these great ideas with Eswatini’s decision making system but I failed to find relevance of this democratic policy.

I asked myself, who is representing everybody in life questioning decisions of state?
I found myself caught up in a cloud of the darkest perplexity in existence. I have seen so many things going bad but the latest decision of reopening schools without having really taking into consideration the consequences of such a risk.

Respect

With all due and profound respect I say, on behalf of all the people who didn’t have a chance to say a thing, ‘we need a voice’!
It has dawned on me that nobody really empathises with rural folk. Nobody understands our situation and thus we are dragged into a lot of trouble by people who have means to survive. In case people do not understand the messy situation we face, almost 70 per cent of rural folk are jobless and survive through hustling daily.

Fees

The reopening of schools requires them to pay due school and examination fees, which is something they will not be able to afford because their hustling was disturbed ages ago under the lockdown.
We are talking of single parents who pay their bills by selling goods during school days, people you find sweating profusely going door to door selling tomatoes to survive, and how were they supposed to do that under lockdown? They need a voice!

These things are not just a fairytale, we still have learners who travel a long distance to school and depend on hitch-hiking along the way. There is this school in a rural area I know, where learners pack themselves in an open van and it’s their only mode of transport.
Will that not increase chances of contaminating COVID-19? We are not against education but as a country we need to put an end to less informed decision making, because as citizens we find ourselves cornered with no say pertaining our own lives.

Survey

We are in this together, so it is best that public officials conduct a full survey before dragging people into things they cannot afford to do. It is true that they can’t reach out to everybody for their consent but Eswatini is such a small country to go out and see for themselves the suitability of the plan in motion. There’s a lot of mistakes which need to be attended to quickly before they get out of hand; the issue of pupils bringing their own sanitiser to school is also another loose end, especially in rural areas. These people need to be accommodated in this and they won’t be able to say their views unless they have a voice!

MWEST

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: