And so, even though I am sure I wrote so much about children in poverty in my last post, I really feel I need to write some more on this issue. (Yet, I ask myself, haven’t people heard enough about Africa? Maybe, maybe not! )
Anyway, the awful truth is that in many places, children are the faces of poverty in Africa.
Although people of all ages suffer from extreme poverty and hunger, children suffer the most in Africa especially in the Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Uganda. In other words, poverty carries the faces of innocent little children in these parts of the world.
The problem gets even worse as you move from the big cities and towns to the poor villages where many of the children registered or sponsored by Africa Renewal Ministries come from. The majority of this poor population is made up of poor subsistence farm just to feed themselves and their families. However, about one in every five of these people live in a country affected by warfare. War destroys families and farms leaving most people with nothing at all but extreme poverty and starvation. Famine follows wars in most cases in Africa. poverty in Africa facts.
In conflict-torn countries, the capacity of rural people to make a livelihood has been dramatically curtailed by warfare, and per capita food production has plummeted. facts: war and famine in Africa
Because of war, diseases, extreme poverty and famine, most children are left alone in this cruel world with no parents, no grandparents, no siblings, and no blood relatives at all to take care of them. Most children have lost their parents to the deadly HIV/AIDS. Others have lost their parents to war and their grandparents, to extreme poverty. facts: poverty and hunger in Africa
In Africa, there are the rural poor and the urban poor most of which stay in slums. I grew up in slums. But I am not alone.
About 50% of the African population lives in slums. From the outskirts of Johannesburg in South Africa to the interior of Kibera (Africa’s largest and worst slum) in Kenya, life is a living hell for most African slum residents. Uganda has Kisenyi, Makerere Kivulu, Kawempe and Katoogo as some of dreadful slums.
Some of the children advocated for by Mwangaza Children’s Choir or those that are currently sponsored by Africa Renewal Ministries come from such slums. Actually some of the children travelling with the Mwangaza children’s choir live in these very slums.
Slum houses in Africa are mostly self-built mud houses roofed with rusty corrugated sheets and wooden boards. Slum houses have little or no planning at all. Poor basic sanitation and poor basic services. There are open dumps and open sewage.
Most slums have no electricity and no pipe borne water. Fires are very common in African slums. There no good hospitals and no good schools. Most children in many African slums do not go to school and most get no medical attention when needed.
In some slums, there are just few chemist shops around most of which sell cheap and expired drugs. Majority of the children in several African slums have lost either one or both parents. Because of the high illiteracy rate, HIV/AIDS kills in record numbers in African slums mostly women and children.
-Henry
