Lost Future Recovered After
Struggles
By John Nyasulu (ICS Volunteer) and Jonas Beston
(YONECO Centre Coordinator)
Edited by Tafadzwa Banda and Grace Montgomery (ICS Team Leaders)
Felix Jackson is a aged 20 from
Eneya Village T/A Kwataine in Ntcheu District. He dropped out of school when he
was in Form 2 at Dombole Secondary School.
Due to negative peer pressure, Felix began
behaving badly which led to conflicts between himself and his father. This led
to Felix rebelling and challenging his parents that he can be self-reliant and independent
at the age of eighteen, thus he decided to drop out of school after only
completing form 2. This means that Felix did not complete the final forms of secondary
school in Malawi, which are form 3 and form 4. Therefore, he dropped out of
secondary school without any qualifications and without many basic skills to
pursue a future career with.
 |
| Felix (centre) being counselled by ICS Volunteer John (left) and YONECO Centre Coordinator Jonas (right) |
He moved into pirating films in the Ntcheu
main market. He moved out of the family house and rented his own apartment for
two years. In addition, he started drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana
(commonly known as chamba in the Chichewa language), and visited Sex Workers (known as night queens in Malawi). His parents worked hard on
trying to persuade Felix to change his behaviour, however it had no benefit.
Felix’s visits to the family house were
solely to steal assorted items from the family in order to sell on. Felix's family felt that this type
of behaviour brought shame not only on them but also to the community
as a whole. Family friends also attempted to help Felix and his parents and
would have meetings to discover methods to curb his behaviour.
As time elapsed, Felix’s life changed,
he failed to feed himself and could not pay rent. This made his friends start neglecting him and he was later evicted from the house he was renting by
his landlord. After suffering from being shunned from the community, his
friends and his family and also being homeless and without money to even buy
food, Felix decided to go back to his parents and ask for forgiveness. The
parents refused to accept his apology and chased him away and suggested that he
should go and stay in their home village in Zomba. Felix decided to contact to Ntcheu- Youth Net and Counselling Organisation (YONECO).
The Ntcheu YONECO Centre Coordinator and
International Service Volunteers invited Felix’s parents to come for a mediation
session which would involve Felix, his parents and the YONECO staff to try and
come to an agreement with each other about Felix’s future. Although his parents
were reluctant to take him back to the family house at first, after
mediation and counselling from YONECO, Felix’s family decided to accept him in
the family house again and support him in his development for a better future. Felix
was also advised to go for HIV Testing Services in order to know his status and
thus be able to start positively planning for his future.
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| From L-R, Felix, Jonas and John after the counselling session |
Felix is now living happily with his
parents and has assured them that he has changed his bad behaviours and is willing
to go back to school in September 2017 when the new term begins. In order to
monitor this progress, YONECO will keep in contact with both Felix and his parents.
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