A brief look into “township life.”

One thing that worries me about young people that live in Guguletu is the lack of interest to study and further their skills. Some young people in Guguletu want to make money easily and resort to illegal methods in doing this. Instead of empowering themselves through studying they resort to crime.

You find groups of young men in townships such as Guguletu and Langa who are called OoCharlie. Now what these groups of young men do to make a living is to duplicate credit cards; this is fraud. They have a machine called grab, which is able to duplicate a person’s credit card number. They then make a copy of these cards and then go to shops and use these cards to buy all sorts of items ranging from clothing, food, airtime to house appliances. They then sell these items in oreder to obtain cash.

What they also do is linger around ATM’S, they place a grab machine which will somehow jam your card and they will approach you and tell you that your card has been swallowed by the ATM machine, you will walk away from the ATM and they will be able to take out your card and use it to draw your money.

These young men certainly know what they are doing as they are able to make a living out of it. They drive the latest cars and some have moved out of their family homes and rent out flats in the suburbs. They dress snazzy, displaying expensive brands and have girls going 'crazy' about them. Money that is easily earned is easily spent, these young men spend their money on alcohol, girls, having fun and spoiling people. They don’t seem to think about their future.

These guys are well know and they have become the “celebrities” of Guguletu. Many people know how they make a living but there is nothing they can do to put an end to their behaviour. What worries me is the fact that some young boys look up to them and aspire to be like them one day, therefore this vicious cycle will continue for years to come.

Signing out> Sbosh