Our country Kenya is at a pivotal time now. We are getting ready for the general elections taking place in August this year. We have all kinds of political analysts cropping from various places, but one in particular caught my attention.
I have an aunt who lives near my grandmother’s. She lives two hills from the main town in the region. She has one son, Kinyanjui, a very smart young boy. He was recently given an award for being the best Swahili speaker in the school, and dear, you would want to listen to how he speaks (he left me laughing the whole time). Anyway, it’s a little village, which is a story for another day.
We had travelled two weekends ago. It was an epic slog, quite far but the journey was interesting, what we would like to call a “road trip”. I had bought a few nice and sugary things for the children there. When we arrived, I found Kinyanjui seated next an old dusty radio listening to a Kikuyu channel. After drawing closer, i realized that he was listening to the news. I sat next to him and voila, the young man had just found a favorable audience for him. He talked the whole time giving me various odds supporting why he thought that his favorite candidates would win.
A few things surprised me, a boy as young as 9 years would have so much information in a field that I had close to nothing to say about. And again, coming from a region in the country that had not so much access to what would be going on in the world, he knew a lot!
Children nowadays are interested in fields that they would not look into before. Parents should now urge their children to watch the news every single day and also take part in debates. The exposure they get might be very important to them in the future.
As parents, it would be important to set standards and let them know the virtues that they should uphold in case they would like to pursue the political field. Slowly by slowly, the teachings will accrue and bring out a well molded individual in the society.
As we all work hard to bring up politically empowered children, let us also listen to their input; most of them know a lot!
Kindly leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Photo credits : http://mncivicyouth.org/
Lots of Love,
Ruguru Kimani.
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