Why Mwangaza Speaks For Children Affected By Poverty

Everywhere we go, we share the good news that JESUS CHRIST is “the Hope of the Nations.” Also, we speak about Jesus’ message of reaching out to the poor, for example, the poor children in Uganda.


These children are also known as the children in need, the needy children or the children at risk. Here are some disturbing Facts About Children and Poverty.

Health Care and Nutrition

· Measles, malaria and diarrhea are three of the biggest killers of children — yet all are preventable or treatable. 

· In sub-Saharan Africa, measles takes the life of a child nearly every minute of every day. An effective measles vaccine costs as little as $1 per child. (source: WHO)

· More than 30 million children in the world are not immunized against treatable or preventable diseases 

· HIV/AIDS has created more than 14 million orphans — 92 percent of them live in Africa. 

· A child dies every three seconds from AIDS and extreme poverty, often before their fifth birthday.

· Six million children under five die every year as a result of hunger. Also, every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday. (sources: UNICEF, WHO) 

· More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day, 300 million are children. (global stats: UNAIDS)

· Nearly one third of children in Sub-Saharan Africa are underweight. (source: UNICEF) 

· Between 12 and 16 million African children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. (source: World Vision) 

· Nearly 2 million children under 14 years old are HIV positive in sub - Saharan Africa. (source: Avert )

· 43% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have safe, accessible drinking water. (source: UNICEF)

Education

· 134 million children between the ages of 7 to 18 have never been to school. 

· Girls are more likely to go without schooling than boys — in the Middle East and North Africa, girls are three times more likely than boys to be denied education 

· For every 100 boys there are only 83 girls enrolled at primary school. (AU: Stats: Poverty in Africa)

· Only 57% of African children are enrolled in primary education, and one in three of those does not complete school. (African Union: Poverty in Africa statistics) 

Exploitation 

· In the last decade, more than 2 million children have died as a direct result of armed conflict. 

· More than 300,000 child soldiers are exploited in armed conflicts in over 30 countries around the world. 

· 2 million children are believed to be exploited through the commercial sex trade. 

· 200,000 child slaves are sold every year in Africa. There are an estimated 8,000 girl-slaves in West Africa alone. (sources: BBC 5 October, 2001 & Anti-Slavery Society)

For Mwangaza, these facts are not just figures they read or hear about. These facts are lives they see every day. They are the needy friends who cannot go to school in their own village or in the next village. They are the orphans living next door. They are their bothers and sisters and cousins and nephews and nieces who cannot smile because there is basically nothing to smile about. They are the sad friends of someone they know.


Actually, for Mwangaza children, these facts are the facts of their own lives. They too have only been rescued from this hopeless life by the grace of God working through someone who decided to sponsor a needy child in Uganda. And so, the Mwangaza Children Choir just can’t help singing about the grace of God and about the need to extend this grace to the other many needy children in Uganda and all around the world!