The research explored the impact of artisanal mining on the career development of adolescents at three selected schools in Imbizo District, Bulawayo Metropolitan Province. Interpretivism research philosophy was employed in the study, and a qualitative research method was used. The phenomenological research design was adopted for the study. The sample comprised fifteen school children aged between 14 to 20 years, and six teachers were selected from schools in Imbizo district in Bulawayo province, Zimbabwe, using purposive sampling. Due to COVID-19 regulations, interviews were telephonically, and focus group discussions were conducted online. Interviews were used to collect data from children, while focus group discussions were used to collect data from teachers. The findings revealed that causes of child involvement in artisanal mining include influence from society, poverty, drugs, adventure and the COVID-19 outbreak. The research findings revealed that child involvement in mining brought undesirable behavioural traits such as anti-social behaviour, poor academic performance, health and safety risks and different forms of abuse. Strategies suggested by teachers to mitigate child involvement in illegal mining encompassed legalising the small-scale mines, life skills education, educational support to all vulnerable children, community awareness campaigns, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government involvement. The children suggested that the government could help by providing them with basic needs like food and paying for their schools and stationery.

Children raised by single parents face many challenges that can be social, psychological, cultural or economic, resulting in erratic behavior. This study explored the dilemmas of children raised by single parents in the Kingdom of Eswatini in Lubombo region. The study was undertaken in a transformative research paradigm, and the Participatory Action Learning Action Research (PALAR) design was used. This qualitative study employed in-depth interviews and focus group discussions to get views from single parents and children in single parenting, and the data were analysed through thematic analysis. A sample of six single parents and six children raised by single parents were selected from the Lubombo region using the purposive sampling technique. Informed by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the findings of the study revealed that single parenting led to children feeling abandoned, rejected and unloved by the absent parent, which had social and psychological effects on the children. The study concluded that children raised by single parents face psychological, social, economic and cultural challenges. Most of them are fixated and need counselling. The study suggests, for Eswatini, that the Home Affairs Department, in partnership with relevant non-governmental organisations (NGOs) should make psychological counselling readily available for single parents and their children.