Handouts will create more beggars than jobs

The phrase “Give a man fish, he’ll eat for a day; teach him how to fish, and he’ll eat for a life time,” coined by Anne Isabella Ritchie, the daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray in 1885 creates awareness and spreads the good news of hard work. If Uganda picked a leaf from the phrase, maybe we would have less beggars on the streets, in homes and in offices.

From taking pigs to parliament, to mourning at the independence monument for jobs. The youth have devised all sorts of means to cry out to the government for jobs. It is very likely that the way the way and the rate at which the government if giving handouts to the youth has turned Uganda into a beggars entity where people have to wait on the government for opportunities.

Come to think of it; there is no way a normal person will wake up one morning and decide to paint pigs yellow and sneak them into parliament premises, or decide to light a fire at the independence monument, claiming that they jobless. My 80 year old grandmother never went to school but was able to educate her eight sons and 4 daughters without begging for money from any one. How did she do this?

Everyone has an obligation to work. The idea of giving handouts to the youth is hitting a dead-end. Why should you give someone money before you can see what they have to offer? The bible in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 condemns laziness, saying that “whoever does not work, should not be allowed to eat.” By giving handouts and money to the youth, the government is creating a lazy I do not care attitude among the youth.

The number of beggars on the streets, school drop outs are increasing by day. This kind of attitude has been made intense by the fact that the government has always been ready to support the youth by giving them money to startup businesses. It is not a bad idea to give the youth money, but the way it is disbursed to the youth is an issue. You cannot give money to people in sucks and expect them to respect you, or rather to work hard. This creates a lazy attitude towards and work, creating a poor economy.

A 2013 report by Action Aid Internal in Uganda revealed that 62% of the youth are unemployed and that the high unemployment rate by the youth posed a threat to the being of the society. This is a fact that we all must understand, as the youth account for the largest percent of the country’s population. Much as the unemployment rate is to some extent due to the disconnection between the degree achieved and the vocational skills needed for the jobs that are in demand for workers, I would rather attribute it to the rates at which the government continuously gives the youth freebies. Why not let them struggle on their own and learn to fend for themselves?

The fact that handouts are given to the youth, the also have got a tendency to have negative views on certain jobs. For example, one would rather stay home and depend on their parents than do a job that requires manual work. This is because the youth today have been taught to have everything on a silver Plata that to work hard to gain their own wealth.

For instance someone grows up in a family where a 15 year old is a car as a birthday present; what kind of future does such a child have to hope for after her parents have passed on. Without he parents a child such as that one cannot do much for herself, since her parents have trained her to think that she has to receive everything from her elders without working so hard to get them.

Until such attitudes are erased from the younger generation, there will never be a tangible relationship between hard work and achievement in the minds of the youth today. Majority are living lives where they have to beg everything, hopefully, they will not beg to live.

The African development indicators 2012/13 estimated youth unemployment in Uganda at 83%, and this has geared several demonstrations, a sign that Uganda is sitting on the unemployment crisis.

It is very hard for me to disagree with Robert Kabushenga’s idea he raised during the Pakasa Forum this year that youth need more of vocational training than handouts that cannot be sustained. As he addressed the audience at the forum, Kabushenga said that unemployment is capable to turning the youth into marauding thugs ready to attack the haves of our society for cash and property.

Walk into a lecture room in any university and ask a final year student of any course, ask them about their future plans and majority will tell about how they will organize their brown envelopes and get them ready for applications in different offices. The concept of job creation is very rare in many students’ dictionaries. Hardly do they know that they have to be creative enough to learn to earn their own living without being under the control of a boss. Why not be your own boss?

Why should we lead a walk of shame, sit and cross our hands as wait for freebies from the government and yet God endowed us with two arms, two legs and a brain to think!