I made a discovery three weeks ago. Not a very good one and it has been bothering me since. There is a possible end to townships! Are you thinking that’s an absurd claim or I have been smoking bananas? Well three out of five people born and bred in the townships are determined to be super successful, leave the township and never come back! Wait, before you ask me about my sources, let me confess: that interesting statistic is not really derived from a comprehensive research study by some professor. It’s a little and very unofficial research exercise I conducted by myself.
No, really, three weeks ago I decided to approach five random and, may I add, young people around Khayelitsha and asked them two simple questions: 1. “Do you aspire to be supper successful?”, 2. “When this aspiration becomes reality, do you plan to leave Khayelitsha and never come back?”
I got three very certain yeses for both questions and two “uhmm, Nos” for the second one. Now what does this tell us? In a couple of years to come about 80% our population will be making it big in the suburbs and we will be left with a very skeptical 20 %. Depending on how you look a this, it can be both a good and a bad thing.
I personally think it’s a serious problem. If we get huge chunks of skilled and talented youth leaving our community, who’s going to look after it? Who will nurture young talent and ensure that social development is progressing? And for very obvious reasons, don’t even think about the government, that poor lot clearly has a lot going on at the same time.
This issue has been giving me headaches for the past three weeks. You see, I’m very big on cultivating skills back. An overly obvious reason for the youth to leave and never come back would be the current state that our townships are in. That is crime, lack of ambition and perhaps lack of life sustaining resources. But if not us, who will put an end to this? Think about it.
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