Zimbabwean Cleric Highlights Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions on Society Members

The COVID-19 restrictions have also taken a toll on school-going children who are “frustrated as they yearn for the schools’ reopening so that they may enjoy their childhood experiences,” the Cleric says in his report titled, “The agony of grief due to COVID 19.”

“Those who are privileged with private online lessons are bored with e-learning,” Fr. Ndlovu says referencing learners following online classes, and adds, “At times their private teachers bombard them with material without regard for the need for learners to play and do household chores.”

With children learning from home, the Cleric of Bulawayo Archdiocese says, parents are monitoring the progress of their schoolwork “although applying laymen’s teaching skills on the children thereby further tormenting children.”

“Some children are now showing their true colors to parents. They do not want to do menial work like gardening and taking care of poultry, which has become the common source of income in many urban households,” Fr. Ndlovu says and adds, “They only enjoy sleeping longer hours and watching television or playing with their I-pads which have been bought for learning purposes.”

Faced with this kind of predicament, “parents have either to let children do as they please and thereby spoil them or to confront children and challenge them to contribute to family production thereby preparing them to be responsible citizens who will be productive,” he says.

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“The lockdown restrictions have also affected the teenagers who are now suffering from idleness,” the Priest who is the Director of Emthonjeni Pastoral Centre in Bulawayo Archdiocese says and notes that among those arrested for violating COVID-19 containment measures in the Southern African nation are the young people.

He adds, “With all the energy they have and yet expected to stay indoors for as long as thirty days, in yards which have no gardens, recreational facilities for gym one would be expecting miracles for compliance.”

Another group of people affected by the pandemic are parents who the Bulawayo-based Cleric says are “overwhelmed” since, “the need to provide basic provisions to the family is itself too much to bear.”

“Without government intervention mechanisms, parents end up either engaging in illicit practices that not only expose them but also their own children whom they want to feed and those they interact with,” the Priest observes in his January 29 report.

For him, “the whole crisis becomes a vicious circle. With all the pressure on the shoulders of parents, domestic violence of all forms is taking place in homes. Hence the ballooning cases of murder cases or fatal assault of either wives or husbands (but more often of wives).”

According to Fr. Ndlovu, COVID-19 frustrations have also affected some government leaders, a phenomenon he says is evident in the way they are apportioning blame to various people.

“Some high profiled persons of our community were in denial that the pandemic could ever affect us. It was relegated to be God’s punishment of America and its allies. Later on, blame was transferred to opposition parties and all those holding different opinions. In recent days blame and accusation was directed to doctors who were labelled as ‘medical assassins’,” he says.

Due to the anger in some leaders, “reactionary drastic measures are taken without clearly laid out plans for recovery and restoration,” the Zimbabwean Priest says and cautions, “COVID 19 is not a spiritual reality but a physical reality, which needs scientific data and evidence-based measures.”

Amid the crisis occasioned by the pandemic, Fr. Ndlovu says, “There is a need for social psychotherapy by way of coming up with intervention strategies, effective advocacy and awareness programs, coming up with constant analysis and review of the situation, engagement of all community key players right across the political divide.”

He adds, “There is a need to lead by example and walk the talk by everybody at all levels of life.”

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