Summer vacations and youths [Archives:2004/755/Community]

By Nawal Zaid
For the Yemen Times
On many occasions, many youths spend most of their summer vacation playing on streets and sitting at Internet cafes checking inappropriate sites or simply lingering in streets aimlessly thinking about nothing useful.
Most of the boys spend their summer holidays chewing Qat or creating problems for other neighbours or pedestrians. They become more susceptible to serious traffic accidents taking into consideration the disrespect of traffic lights, rules and regulations by most of Yemeni drivers. They are not encouraged to attend educational institutes in order to improve their skills either in foreign languages or subjects that would be very useful to them when they return back to school.
Many parents are unaware of the importance of guiding their children to get more involved in activities that would be very productive for the children when they grow old. Regrettably, many parents do not require their children to attend the daily prayers at mosques now that they do not have to worry about going to school.
Meanwhile many of the girls usually spend most of their summer time studying at homes or at institutes to learn handicraft skills such as sowing or to learn computer skills or to strengthen their foreign languages skills.
Student Saddam Aziz Zaid said that developing a certain hobby by a young kid could improve his the level of his ingenuity and creativity and mental thinking. He said that he was very lucky to be able to distribute his free time between playing and learning and spending time at the nearby mosque.
He manages to play at the park sometimes and to learn English at other times.
The challenge of guiding our boys and kids lies in the hands of parents and some related authorities. The parents must impose a strict schedule for their children to spend their summer vacation while the related authorities must provide the facilities for many kids to enjoy their time while at the same time helping them gain or develop new skills such as establishing recreational and sports facilities for the youths to use, such as swimming pools, tennis courts, football fields, etc.
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