Next visit lead
us to the one of the poorest parts of Mauritius: Saint Croix. While some of our
friends were conducting the cleaning campaign there, our group went to the
street to make few interviews with local people. Our goal was to get to know
what is people’s knowledge and opinion about environment, education,
discrimination and politics.
In general
people were willing to answer our questions. We asked a lot of citizens from
this area, so we can divide them into few groups. In the first one we can
include youngsters and their attitude towards social life. Secondary schools
students told us that the biggest problem in the area is poverty, lack of
education and due to these factors the society isn’t really willing and able to
change. They were complaining about the bureaucracy, because any help from the
government equals filling loads of papers. They were quite satisfied with the
education system and teachers’ attitude, but they also said that it usually
depends on students’ interest. They had some knowledge about recycling, but one
of them honestly told us that they’re not doing that – only some people are
collecting cans and plastic bottles, in most cases to get some money out of
that. Their schools usually are not providing them with any classes or
workshops about the environment, so they are not aware of that climate change
and not only might affect their lives in the future. All of them emphasized
that they would like to see a change in government.
As main
employers in the area are shop owners, we decided to interview some of them. Our
first impression was that usually they were much better educated. The same as
others they pointed out drug and alcohol problems, but also not enough
activities for young people and lack of security (police is afraid of going out
to the streets). They didn’t see any discrimination, but they complained about
education system – most of them admitted that schools in Mauritius need more
good qualified teachers. They were more concerned about the environment and
recycling than elderly people, but as they don’t have enough facilities to do
that, they’re not segregating their rubbish (in some cases only plastic
bottles). Everyone agreed that a change in government is also necessary.
Some of us also
went to speak with one of the teachers from an NGO in Saint Croix. Apart from problems
already pointed out above, she noted the issue of teenage pregnancies and as a
consequence many young girls are dropping school too early. She told us that
education system is not suitable for children with difficulties, which causes
that teachers prefer smart kids and the others are often left aside and which is also an example of discrimination. In conclusion she admitted that there are still a lot of things to be
done in the whole country, because people are not respecting any law.
One elderly
woman, with whom we were trying to make a conversation, didn’t speak English
really well, but with a little help from people we could ask her few questions.
In general she said that main problems in Saint Croix are drugs and
prostitution. She wasn’t really satisfied with education system either. In the
end she admitted that there is some religion discrimination visible in the
entire country.
Although the
situation in Saint Croix seems pretty harsh, some people don’t want to see the
reality and they still have an impression that government is providing them
with a lot of facilities. Some of them think that the education system is
working well and they don’t want to admit that there is still a lot to do in
Mauritius. What do you think the government should do for these poor areas?
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