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Chitungwiza Bureau
A Chitungwiza based youth empowerment outfit is set to host a week-long soccer tournament starting on Christmas day at Ziko shops in the dormitory town of Chitungwiza, it has been established.
Teen Rescue Mission (TRM), a Chitungwiza-based organisation in the fight against drug, alcohol abuse, crime and early pregnancies among youths will be hosting the tournament for girls.
TRM Project Officer, Praise Munetsi said the tournament expected to end on New Year’s Day is centred on getting the girl child occupied so as to protect them from activities that may lure them into early unprotected sexual activities this festive season.
According to TRM, the tournament was inspired by the erstwhile treatment of the girl child who is usually vulnerable to victimisation during holidays of such magnitude.
“Young girls and boys get over excited and uncontrollable during the festive season and any other holiday away from school. At the end of the day, they end up indulging in drugs, alcohol and early unprotected sexual activities.
“Last year we had a report of about 5 000 young girls from Primary to Secondary who got pregnant and could not return back to school after holidays.
“Chitungwiza was not spared from these cases of early pregnancies and the situation is not pleasant at all,” Munetsi said.
Munetsi said TRM selected Ziko area as it has reportedly been a hot spot where young girls assemble to take drugs and alcohol resulting in them becoming victims of unprotected sex resulting in early pregnancies.
“So as TRM we have taken this initiative to have the young girls play soccer during these days as we occupy them and take them away from engaging in activities that will have a negative impact on them.
“So far we have nine teams of girls from the age of 10 to 18 years which have registered to participate. Spending the whole day with them young will save them from some of these activities that would ruin their lives.
Munetsi said TRM was also going to slot in soccer for boys and cried out to the local business entities and other stakeholders to assist them in any way possible with resources for the tournament to be a success.
“As Teen Rescue Mission, we still have resource challenges for the football event to be successful. We are calling on individuals and corporates to come and support us in any way they can in the drive to save our future generation,” Munatsi said. Nhau/Indaba
