Shabait

The precedence objective of the government of Eritrea is to arm its citizens with appropriate professional knowledge and help them develop their skill competence. Through this motive the government and the people of Eritrea are in a relentless strive to build a self sustained nation. The government therefore promotes the extension of educational opportunities for all ages in the entire country. As part and parcel of the all-round development of education in the country, accordingly, the government plays a standard-bearer role on the extension of educational opportunity for prisoners envisioned at promoting the prisoners’ skills, sports and their cultural and moral values. 

This is for the fourth time that the Sawa Youth Festival has been celebrated. Such a festival is very common for the Eritrean people in general and the Eritrean youth in particular. Eritreans inside the country and Eritrean communities abroad have developed a reputation as a community of festivals.

The Eri-Youth Festival, what every Eritrean longs for, has started today, 16 July 2010 at the usual place Sawa, the center gravity of the youth. Eritreans from all corners of the world have started to flow into their homeland so as to participate in  the event, in which they get the opportunity to learn a lot about  their cultures, norms, customs, traditions and  values of their place of origin.  Ever since the Eri-youth festival started, lots of youths from the Diaspora found the opportunity to come and visit their country and get to know what their people, their families are experiencing.

Eritrea used to be rich in wildlife resources, but owing to successive colonial administrations followed by decades of war and persistent drought, this valuable resource never had the chance to follow its natural course of existence. War and drought are as catastrophic to wildlife as they are to human beings and they are the causes of dispersion and disintegration.

On a Thursday morning 22 years ago, the inhabitants of She’eb— a village in the eastern low-lands of Eritrea- woke to a day that would be one of the most terrible days in the history of the country. That day the inhabitants of She’eb heard roaring sounds of tanks and vehicles making their way out of the main road to the village, suddenly giving rise to an atmosphere of great foreboding. Unable to stomach their defeat in Afabet, Derg soldiers had turned their guns on defenseless civilians. The soldiers made their way to the village with deliberate carnage on their minds and by the end of the morning they had shot, mutilated and crushed around 400 members of the village.

It is very difficult to keep bitter memories for a long time. Mankind by nature is inclined to forget, lest too much remembering renders one to live in the past with a complete ignorance of the present and the past –and makes one blind eye to hope and prosperity. Nonetheless, turning back to look at the past and accounting for the good things at present means honoring those who have put themselves at danger and sacrificed their precious lives and limbs for our sake. For in every house and family, the inevitable has taken place.