People in Somalia taking part in a political demonstration. (Source: Reuters)

Sponsor A Child

Did you know right now Somalia is sliding into complete chaos?  It’s true -  article on Reuter’s Alertnet.org.  I’m sure you have heard of Somalia lately in the news because of rebel pirates from the country hi-jacking ships off their coast… no joke.  Well, of course not everyone is like that there.  Just like here in the United States – not everyone is a pirate :) . In fact, things for regular people are really really reeeaaaallly bad in Somalia.

Facts about Somalia:

• About 1 million people, a third of the population rely on emergency food aid
• Size: slightly smaller than Texas
• Life expectancy at birth: 49.25 years (what!?!)
• Literacy: 37.8% of people age 15+
• Facts from CIA World Factbook

Here’s a quick summary of what the Reuter’s article had to say:

• Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf named a new prime minister on Tuesday, snubbing a vote by parliament to reinstate sacked premier Nur Hassan Hussein and further deepening rifts in the fractured government.
• The African Union, the European Union and the United States have all urged the feuding leaders to end their squabbles and focus on finding peace in the Horn of Africa nation.
• Kenya, which hosted talks to form the transitional government, said it did not recognise the new prime minister and threatened to slap sanctions on those jeopardizing peace.
• “Things are going to get worse, there will be more chaos because each side has their own militia which can be reconstituted and lead to more chaos,” Patrick Mutahi, an analyst at the Africa Policy Institute, told Reuters.

How does World Concern help children in Somalia?

• Following the tsunami of December 2004, World Concern provided fishing nets, repaired or replaced fishing boats, and rehabilitated water sources and medical facilities. Now people are once again starting to rely on fishing to support their livelihoods, all of which helps children.
• World Concern continues to assist communities affected by the tsunami, with water and sanitation, training community health workers and equipping local medical facilities, further provision of fishing boats and equipment, and community mobilization and empowerment.
• Water in the Jubba Valley is in short supply. World Concern is constructing shallow wells, rebuilding water pans, and helping to establish kitchen gardens around the wells, providing year-round access to clean water for 50,000 people and 28,000 animals.
• After the tsunami hit, World Concern learned that there were no local schools in the tsunami-affected Bajuni community. World Concern has since constructed four local schools for children and provides them with education materials, building the capacity of teachers and increasing the number of children attending school and receiving a primary education.

Want to do something to help children?

• Donate to where most needed
• Donate to provide water
• Donate to provide education
• Choose what program to donate to
• Sponsor a child (in Kenya, Haiti, or Bangladesh)

Well, the hunger problems are getting worse because of the financial crisis that’s going on around the world and children are proving to be the most vulnerable.

It pretty much follows, right?  The United States is having problems with their economy and so of course other nations are going to be effected – especially poor ones like Haiti.

Think about this though: While people in the United States are thinking “Well, maybe I should cut back on my cell phone minutes just to be safe”, people in Haiti are thinking “How am I going to get enough food for my child tomorrow?”  FOOD.  The thing they need to LIVE.  It’s not a luxury like a cell phone.

I’m not trying to ‘guilt-trip’ anyone.  I just want to change the perspective and give people a fresh view of what’s going on outside the bubble.

Here’s a video from Haiti:

You can get more information about Child Sponsorship on our Sponsor A Child page. World Concern has specific child sponsorship programs set up in Haiti to help with this situation.

Children walk past a makeshift house at a slum outside a small village in Zimbabwe. (Source: Reuters)

Today on Reuter’s Alertnet.org (another great source for worldly information) there was another story about the Cholera Outbreak in Zimbabwe. Here are the main parts:

Up to 60,000 people in Zimbabwe could be infected with cholera in the worst case if the epidemic spirals further out of control, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The known number people with cholera in Zimbabwe stands at 13,960 with 589 deaths, although the true extent of the outbreak which began in August is unclear, according to the U.N. agency.

“The health-cluster assessment in a worst-case scenario is 60,000 cases,” WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a news briefing in Geneva.

The cholera outbreak is the worst recorded in Zimbabwe, where many patients are unable to reach health centres or if they do, find them unable to provide simple life-saving medicines, it said.

A poor mother with her child

The highly contagious disease is both preventable and treatable under normal circumstances, but Zimbabwe’s health sector has nearly collapsed as a result of the country’s economic crisis.

The rate of fatalities is quite high — 4.5 percent overall and up to 50 percent in some areas — according to the WHO. It says it should be below one percent of cases in any outbreak.

What can you do to help the situation in Zimbabwe?

• World Concern provides limited health and medical services (deworming medication) in Zimbabwe.
  • Donate to Health and medical services
• World Concern does not have a child sponsorship program in Zimbabwe, but you can sponsor a child in Kenya, Africa – a country that’s fairly close geographically to Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Cholera outbreak kills more than 565 people. (Image courtesy of Reuters)

Like a lot of poor countries in Africa, Zimbabwe is a crazy place to live (see map of Zimbabwe).  It’s ruled by an authoritarian President (Robert Mugabe).  You might of heard of him – his armies kill a whole lot of people, he tortures people who oppose him politically, has let the country’s inflation rate hit 11 million percent (I’m not kidding about those things – CNN article, NY Times articles) and for the most part is running his country into ruin.  Doesn’t that just make you want to pack up your stuff and move there?  Imagine the people that have to live there.

If that doesn’t sound bad enough, now Zimbabwe has a Cholera Outbreak and because of it has declared a National Emergency.  Here is a quick breakdown of what is going on:

• More than 565 people have died so far, according to the United Nations
• Zimbabwe does not have a health care system that could handle an epidemic
  • Quote from Zimbabwe’s Health Minister, David Parirenyatwa: “Our central hospitals are literally not functioning. Our staff is de-motivated and we need your support to ensure that they start coming to work and our health system is revived”.
• People are struggling to find clean drinking water (NY Times)
• The political situation there is predicted to make the outbreak much worse

What is Cholera?  Here are some quick facts about Cholera (info from Wikipedia’s entry on Cholera):

• It’s a bacteria
• Humans get Cholera through drinking water or eating food that has the bacteria in it
• Once in your system, Cholera attacks your intestines
• It causes severe diarrhea which can lead to death if not treated right away
• Treatment: Re-hydration (i.e. drinking lots of clean non-infected water)
  • Something to think about: How is re-hydration going to happen in a country where 19% of the population doesn’t have access to improved drinking water and 47% don’t have access to improved sanitation facilities?
  • See more statistics about Zimbabwe

Here is a video about the Cholera National Emergency in Zimbabwe (from Reuters):

What can you do to help the situation in Zimbabwe?

• World Concern provides limited health and medical services (deworming medication) in Zimbabwe.
  • Donate to Health and medical services
• World Concern does not have a child sponsorship program in Zimbabwe, but you can sponsor a child in Kenya, Africa – a country that’s fairly close geographically to Zimbabwe.

We all know about Africa.  It’s in the news a lot.  Diseases, civil war, no food, no water… the list is a mile long.

But, have you ever thought about the children in Africa?  What is their situation like?  We hear about food shortages on the evening news, but do you immediately picture a child?  I sure don’t.  When you see images of a really poor and dirty person, do you think how that lifestyle is effecting that person’s kids?  Not immediately – right?

See – that’s the crazy thing.  Children in Africa are the most vulnerable of the population.  They need the most protection because children can’t protect themselves.  But, because we’re adults (assuming the people reading this blog are), we tend to envision someone similar to ourselvs in a situation that’s being described – like pictuing someone starving for food.  Thinking about the child’s situation becomes an afterthought, when it should be the most important.  Am I wrong?

World Concern works all over the place in Africa (see interactive map of where we work). Through our base in Kenya, Africa you can sponsor a child in Africa .  It only costs $28 dollars per month.  That breaks down to (pre-appology for the stereo-typcical phrase) less than a dollar a day!

Around the word,  there are approximately 33,000,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.  Of those, 2,000,000 are children under the age of 15 years.  AND, 90% of those 2 million kids are living in Sub-Saharan Africa (that’s the southern part of Africa).

You’re right – that is crazy!  But, there are a lot of organizations doing things around the world to provide AIDS relief and World Concern is one of them.  There are a ton of things we do to help (like AIDS education, providing health and medical services, etc), but one of the most direct ways you can help is to sponsor a child. We’re not just ‘tooting-our-own-horn’.  It really helps out.

Alright, let’s get visual. Here are some charts from one of our favorite websites about children ( ChildInfo.org / Children and AIDS ):

Children living with HIV globally, 1990 – 2007

Want to learn more?

• Read this UNICEF report on children with HIV/AIDS (PDF, 2.2mb)
  
• Check out our page about AIDS

Millions of children work to help their families in ways that are neither harmful nor exploitative. But one in seven children ages 5–14 years old, about 158 million children globally, is involved in child labor. These children are put to work in ways that drain childhood of joy and crush the right to normal physical and mental development, and often interfere with children’s education.

Around 1 in 3 children aged 5–14 in Sub-Saharan Africa labors, compared to only 1 in 20 in the Central and Eastern European/Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS) region. Children living in the poorest households and in rural areas are most likely to be involved in child labour. Those burdened with household chores are overwhelmingly girls.

Ensuring that all children go to school and that their education is of good quality are keys to preventing child labor.  That’s where child sponsorship comes in.

This image shows the percentage of children, within a country, that are involved in child labor.

Most of the above text, and map photo too, was taken directly from the UNICEF’s child info website. Their site is definitely worth exploring, if you have the time and want to learn about the plight of children around the world.

Discussion in the comments section below.