21 Mar 2016

Mahalapye Sub-district Men Sector chairperson, Mr Lucky Sesola, has advised tribal leaders to form health committees in their respective wards.

Speaking during a meeting with tribal leaders in Mahalapye recently, Mr Sesola said such committees would be responsible for teaching people about the consequences of not taking medication as prescribed and also consuming alcohol while on medication. 

He said Men Sector was concerned by the attitude of some certain individuals who after they had started taking ARV treatment, defaulted and threw the drugs away thus putting their lives at risk.

Therefore, he appealed to tribal leaders that if they had such committees in their wards, they could be on the lookout for such individuals and advise them accordingly.

He explained that Mahalapye was hard hit by HIV and AIDS and statistics indicated that it was among the top five districts mostly affected by HIV.

For his part, Mahalapye Sub-district Men Sector public relations officer, Mr Kebaemetse Kesenogile said HIV/AIDS, was not the only issue of concern in Mahalapye, citing amongst others poor academic results, theft and teenage pregnancy.

Mr Kesenogile said Mahalapye was no longer appealing and that this called for the attention of all community leaders adding that it was for the same reason that as Men Sector they engaged the Mahalapye community tribal leaders to share ideas on how to curb these social ills.

Mr Kesenogile, however, said as Men Sector they found out that the major contributor to all the aforementioned social ills was a lot of noise from bars and parties.

He said a lot of noise hindered people from being able to hear when there was burglary on the neighborhood adding that it also distracted students from studying hence the poor results.

He urged tribal leaders to take a step and help fight these ills before Mahalapye is placed on the first spot as the most HIV/AIDS affected district adding that tribal leaders should not wait for things to be messier.

Meanwhile when airing his views Thomadithotse ward representative Mr Bantsekae Gabatshwane concurred with Men Sector that a lot of noise and alcohol were the main contributors to the social ills besieging the Mahalapye community.

He said however that, for the ills to be mitigated it needs parents to also stand on their feet and see to it that these things are dealt with accordingly adding that parents were the ones who sold alcohol to children. 

Mr Bantsekae further said parents should avoid sending their children to buy alcohol and cigarettes for them.

Flowertown ward representative Mr  Keresepe Keitseope said what Men Sector called for being the formation of ward health committees, was what they did in 2006 in his ward adding that the committee collapsed due to lack of supervision arguing that when forming such committees they should make sure that there was supervision. Ends