FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
Dear Reader,
You know how they say that the third time’s the charm? Well, I think you’ll agree that our students’ third articles demonstrate the incredible growth they’ve made as journalists over the past month and a half. I encourage you to email your responses and criticisms to lindsay.pearlman@eli-africa.org.
Happy reading.
Think different,
Lindsay Pearlman, Editor-in-Chief
1. VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
By Gawtam Meethoo
In Mauritius, video games are fast becoming one of the most popular choices among children and young adults. They play it to have fun part time. However, as video games have become more popular they buy it to play.
Violent video games are bad for health. Video games are children’s’ favorite activities, a growing body of research is linking violent video game decreases behaviors. Children spend hours and hours in front of a video game shouting demons or slay bad guys, also affecting our brain and eye vision. (India Times, December 21.2010, Kounteya Sinha)
It affects our brain, it affects our eye vision. Many children spend time in front the video game that affects our eye vision. It is possible that it can affect our weight and developing memory. Sometimes some children start doing something bad that they see in the video game. It affects our communication too while reading. Sometimes they forget human values.
Many forgot to eat on time while play violent video games. (video game addiction, no date) “Lying about how much time you spend playing computer or video games. Playing computer or video games results in intense feelings of pleasure or guilt that seem uncontrollable. Spending more and more time playing video or computer games to get the same enjoyment. Withdrawing from friends, Family, or your spouse to the point of disrupting family, social, or work life. Experiencing feelings of anger, depression, moodiness, anxiety, or restlessness when you’re not gaming. Spending significant sums of money for online services, computer upgrades, or gaming systems. Thinking obsessively about being on the computer or playing video games even when doing other things”.
In conclusion I would like to say that violent video games are very bad for health because they affect our head and eye vision. I would like to say that many children under 7 year old start playing violent video games. They should not do that because it affects their eyes and their education. That is why I say stop playing violent video games.
2. DOGS
By Diksha Ramburn
Dogs are more different than other animals. They are more beautiful and cute than other animals. They are man’s friend.
Dogs are more loyal because they can be trusted more than human beings. They are more affectionate and more intelligent than other animals. You can always count on dogs. Dogs are good at learning tricks, they are more trainable than other animals and they are curious.
When you talk to your dog it will make faces and tilt its head and try to work out your sayings. When you tell a dog to go and catch something and bring it to you, he will happily obey you. Dogs are burglar deterrents. They can provide protection by barking when strangers approach to let you know someone is nearby. If there is barking of dogs, this will alert you or your neighbors.
Dogs make great companions. They are always there for you, always willing to play and run around or just sit quietly beside you. They will love you no matter what and they do not judge you. After a hard day at school or work, your dog will be ready waiting to greet you with its tail happily wagging and perhaps a wet, sloppy kiss. Dogs can lift your mood when you are down and comfort you when you are lonely. They are especially good pets for the elderly to keep as they may live alone and feel isolated by themselves, so owning a dog is a good option.
My opinion is that dog is the most lovable animal, pet, and friend that a person can have. I have also experienced dogs. And frankly speaking, I found dogs to be among the greatest animals.
3. HOW IS JUVENILE DELINQUENCY RAISED IN SOCIETY?
By Sweta Arti
To begin with, Juvenile Delinquency refers to antisocial or illegal behavior. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with Juvenile Delinquency such as Juvenile Detention Centres. Youth crime is a major issue and is an aspect to crime which receives great attention from the news, media and figures as catastrophic in our modern society.
This is a common phenomenon which is widespread all over the world. The major cause of Juvenile Delinquency is the influence of media and films. Nowadays, youngsters are exposed to all types of films which usually involve violent actions or pornographic characters. This affects youngsters mentally at a very tender age. They tend to put whatever they viewed in practice in their life and thus cause crime like hold-ups, vandalism, hooliganism (during football matches), petty crimes like stealing, gambling and immoral acts like rape, prostitution or even abortion. As a result of lack of supervision by parents, there are lots of school drop-outs by youngsters who loiter around aimlessly during the day and end up getting involved in cases of violence and rape.
Sometimes, Juvenile Delinquency rises up due to personal family problems for example when it is a broken family. Earlier with the extend family system, elders were always there to give advice, but nowadays the fact that they are living away from the elders and also spend more time out of the house, they end up not having enough time to communicate with their dear ones. Consequently, they end up committing petty crimes out of frustration or to satisfy their needs and desires.
However, Juvenile Delinquency can also be caused by bad socialization. Or peer pressure. As parents are not inculcating moral values in their children, they become uncontrollable and tend to fight with their elders at home. On top of that, they use foul language learned from outside to home. Thus, children irritate such behavior at home and at school.
At times, children are very pampered by their parents especially when they are their only son or daughter. They are given all the freedom that they want, all luxuries and comforts are obtained easily and they tend to become arrogant and rebellious of their wealth in due time. Every time they goof up at school, they try to weigh their mistake in terms of money or simply become violent it they do not accept their mistake. These rich youngsters know that their parents will always support them in whatever dad things they do, so they keep on committing mistakes.
The social environment can also have a bad effect on youngsters. Nowadays, youngsters are more exposed to crimes like robbery and drug dealing from the neighborhood. Sometimes, children adopt bad lifestyles due to the social evils prevailing in the region. They end up stealing people’s houses, becoming drug addicts, smoking or even raping girls.
It can be seen that Juvenile Delinquency can be a product of the environment since it is from the society that youngsters adopt such vices, it can also be from the part of parents who give their children excessive care and from friends at school. However, Juvenile Delinquency can be reduced but not eradicated.
4. CO-EDUCATION
By Lakshmee Teeluck
Co-Education is when boys and girls study together. In such schools there are many severe rules and regulation in order to avoid a bad reputation for the school.
Parents fear to send their children to mixed colleges in order for their children not to get attracted to each other. Doing this, they would not be able to concentrate in class. If they do a mistake, they would get a bad reputation. In my summation, I would say that boys and girls should be separated.
Girls are too shy, thus studying among boys may be harmful to their studies. Boys will tease girls who are shy when they will be about presenting their work. Boys would also tease girls by throwing paper on them in class. This will disturb the girls and will make them uncomfortable. There should be more severe rules and regulation in Co-Ed.
Girls may get bad influences from boys. That is smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and many more bad habits. Nowadays girls behave like boys. It can affect their studies by bunking classes and schools. Thus they can be arrested by police. Single schools are better than Co-Education.
Some say that Co-Ed remove shyness as it helps girls and boys in talking to each other. It will help them to work with each other in their life ahead. In society, it is necessary for boys and girls to get married and if they are taught together from the beginning they can understand and know each other very well. So, Co-Ed may remove shyness in order to get a better society.
Co-Ed also improves boldness to talk as it will help boys and girls to go for an interview for a job. It will help boys and girls to be more competitive among each other. They can oppose each other if there’s a mistake. We may get different points of view. Co-Ed may improve boldness to talk for getting a person with much more attitude at the workplace.
With Co-Ed we can have mutual understanding as two genders have to normally be together for lifetime. There will always be trust among each other. We will be able to understand and know the thinking of two genders.
Many people agree that Co-Education removse shyness but I do not agree with it because being shy is a natural feeling in oneself. It’s a natural nature given by God.
Co-Ed cannot improve boldness to talk as if a person is timid since his/her birth, that cannot be changed when he grows up as every man has his/her personal behavior.
With Co-Ed we cannot have mutual understanding as if a man and a woman are about to marry they should get time to know each other, school is meant for education not for knowing boys and girls. And as far as mutual understanding that is also a natural feeling given by God.
I do not support Co-Ed as today’s generation has developed bad manners so they can make their school of bad reputation easily.
5. SMOKING
By Ramanta Devi Ramchurn
Smoking is very bad for health. Nowadays, there are many youngsters who smoke every day. People should stop smoking especially youngsters as they may get cancer like lung cancer and mouth cancer.
According to the Mauritius government website, smoking has been prohibited in public places. By the virtues of regulations made under the Public Health Act, the consumption of smoking cigarettes in public places has been banned since 1 March 2009. The main objective is to reduce tobacco use, decrease exposure to tobacco smoke and promote smoking cessation among smokers. It is also against the law to smoke while preparing, serving or selling foods on premises where the public has access and while driving or traveling in a private vehicle carrying passengers.
The government should put an age limit for smoking. The sale of tobacco products has been prohibited to a person under the age of 18. In Mauritius, 35.9% of males and 5.1% of females are smokers while 14.8% of young people aged between 13 to 15 years are current smokers.
And even the population should vote to make the factory closed as to avoid health problems especially cancer. Smoking is also pollution and this may affect our environment, especially human beings. And this may affect our plants also. By closing the factory this can help people stop smoking.
We can avoid having cancer in Mauritius and this can help youngsters not to smoke.