17 Apr 2016

Kgosi Gabadzo Changate of Changate village has expressed concern at the rate in which young people, in particular, are committing suicides.

Updating the area Member of Parliament (MP) Mr Edwin Batshu at a kgotla meeting , Kgosi Changate noted that already in her village, they had about 10 cases of people taking their lives, citing the latest being of a young man they buried over the weekend.

She stated that the deceased had previously tried suicide about three times without succeeding, only for him to achieve the heinous act the fourth time.

Kgosi Changate said this seemed to be a national phenomenon as it was often reported across the country of people having taken their own lives.

She appealed to the government to help in spreading awareness messages regarding the situation, so that people could learn and understand that a solution to  problems was not through killing themselves, leaving their families wondering what might have been the cause of their harsh decisions.

Furthermore, she pointed out that in their case, most of the people that had taken such decisions were not either having families or children, something that could be viewed as one of the problems, adding that of the 10, only one was an elderly person.

Kgosi Changate however urged families and parents to be on the lookout for persons showing signs of isolation, so that they seek helped while there was still time, adding that being able to share distress can be helpful as it became easy for people to understand one’s problems and assist with forms of solutions.

On other issues, the residents pleaded with their MP to facilitate that their village be one of the beneficiaries of one vehicle per village initiative.

They argued that with a vehicle, they would be able to attend to many things they were unable to because of challenges of transport.

The Village Development Committee (VDC) member Mr Daniel Puso noted that as a village along the border line, they were always looking out to repairing the border fence in an effort to prevent their livestock from crossing over to neighbouring Zimbabwe, where on their return, they were killed in the fight against Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).

Another resident, Mr Elias Maforo, although appreciating that their constituency was one of the beneficiaries of the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP), appealed that their road, which was only 10 kilometres, should have been considered to be among the first projects in this financial year.

He said it had been years since they requested that it be tarred so that they too could be able to attract investors to their village and take advantage of some sites, which can be turned into tourist attractions.

For his part, Mr Batshu suggested that with the VDC, which will be coming in office, they should group themselves together with members of the business community in the village and go see the Vice President and make a plea for their road to be considered among the new projects for ESP in this financial year.

He nonetheless said ESP was going to last for three years. ENDS