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{
"id": 1284301,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1284301/?format=api",
"text_counter": 213,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13219,
"legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
"slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
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"content": "Our grandparents and parents use to care about how they will hand over to the next generation, but for us, it seems we are in a country that is in crisis. That is why we need to look deeply into this Motion and see what interventions the Government can put in place. It is good to adopt best practices from the West, but they also come with a cost to us. When we were in school, we had strict rules. You knew that there were some things, which if you did, you would get serious caning from teachers. I know people like Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale may have been caned once or twice because teachers were not joking. They were serious, they wanted to mould generations for the future. We have now come with another freedom where our young people can question teachers. They do not have the respect we had for teachers. In my days, if am walking and a teacher approaches, I would freeze and let the teacher pass before I do. If a teacher says there is no smoking in school, you knew it was business and the consequences were serious. If you were caught, it could begin with a suspension and ends with an expulsion. We must urge the Government to come up with new policies in our schools, where those who are caught can also face serious consequences. I also feel that our principals and teachers are not doing enough to raise awareness. In our days in 1984-1985 when we had the outbreak of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome HIV/AIDS, there was a lot of effort from our teachers to educate us about what AIDS was all about, including the risks. My Principal, the late Alex Chacha, was so graphic. He said, “young boys, if you joke--- the words he used were “if you put, you get it. If you get it, you are dead”. It sank in. I remember the Ministry of Health (MoH) was brought to school to teach us about the symptoms of AIDs and it was so scary. So, before you tune a lady, we would remember what we were told by MoH. Those days they would say that you would “go” within 6 months. Currently, I do not think we have these kinds of programmes in our schools where we invite people to come talk to our young. If you want to make it “cool”, let us go to a situation where we even take our young to workshops and get their peers who can talk to them about the dangers of these things. This is something worth an investment from our Government. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am lucky not to have been a smoker, but I am told that if you put intervention early enough, you can save some of these children. Why can we not have a budget by the Government? Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale is a doctor, he can tell us. I am told there are some substances if you are given as a smoker, it helps you quit. Before these young people get into full addiction, the Government can set aside money where they get treatment, so that we assist them. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am even worried of a serious problem of hard drugs. When we passed our Constitution in 2010, we committed a few mistakes. One of them is what we put in Chapter 4 of our Constitution that every offence is bailable. You get someone today offering drugs to young people even if 12-year-old, he goes to court where he is charged and freed the next day. He goes back to the market to sell the substance to even more children. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard Services,Senate."
}