Happy Little Angels

2011 VOF WK2
I walk to work every day. By doing this, I save money and exercise at the same time! It’s not a very long walk, about 30 minutes in all. I’ve been doing this since February this year, every day of the week.
My route takes me past houses, little grocery shops called ‘ntembas’ sticking out of every other house. I see women with baskets on their heads, having just come from ordering their fruits and vegetables from Soweto Market. I walk past little children going to school, and other children playing in the road. A lot of busy women and children, going about their work and play.
I walk past a bar along my route. I am not sure what time it opens in the morning, or if it ever closes at all. This is where I find the men, sitting around, drinking, telling stories, and basically just looking unconcerned and not bothered about anything at all. They stopped catcalling a while ago, I always ignore them.
These men annoy me. I am always thinking that these men are fathers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles that should be out there working to help their partners and other relations with the children. In my country, a man can choose whether he pays child support or not. If he is taken to court, he can simply tell the judge that he doesn’t have a job and is unable to look after his children, and that will be it! These are the men found at bars from Monday to Monday, leaving the mothers, grandmothers, aunties, sisters and so on, to raise children on their own.
I decided to do some research on Child Support and Maintenance in Zambia. During my free time, I walked to Afya Mzuri, a resource center that offers among other things, free internet. There, I happened across a magazine called Young Women First, Issue 1, 2011. In it I found a lot of interesting articles, but what caught my eye was page 10, where I found a ‘solution’ so to speak. It was suggesting sites that help people like me start my own blog, and generally have an opportunity to voice my opinion and be a voice for the many women that are suffering alone to bring up their children while the men are not bothered about their responsibilities, and how the system allows them to go scot free! I zeroed in on World Pulse, this is what the caption under it said.
‘…….New ideas and solutions rise from the ground up as women speak out from every corner of the globe and the World Pulse editors are always active on the site, looking for new and untold stories. When fresh stories surface, World Pulse investigates further and commissions stories for their online and print magazines.’
I went to the site and signed up immediately! My personal vision is to see a Zambia with proper and enforceable Child Support and Maintenance Laws. Children are our future, and through ‘Voices of Our Future’, I can do my part to help the little angels.