Archive for category: Children

Information and stories addressing children.

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Defining and Eradicating Child Poverty in Kenya

Child Poverty in Kenya
Charitable organizations and the Kenyan government have long recognized child poverty as a dire issue. Due to this recognition, Kenyan child poverty rates have steadily reduced since 2008. Meanwhile, governmental policies and constitutional highlights, along with funding and research headed by establishments like UNICEF, have improved the lives of countless children within Kenyan communities. UNICEF has conducted extensive research on the main causes of child poverty in Kenya. Its hope is that this research will be a basis for child poverty reduction progress. Here are some of the main contributors that UNICEF identifies as factors relating to child poverty rates in Kenya.

4 Major Definers of Child Poverty in Kenya

  1. Poor Sanitation: Children living in Kenya often do not have access to proper plumbing facilities. In fact, more than half of individuals younger than 18 still lack this basic resource.
  2. Lack of Clean Water: Children, especially those living in rural areas, lack access to water that is clean enough to drink. There are also many schools throughout Kenya that do not have drinking water for their students, which creates a high health risk.
  3. Lack of Education: Around 25% of the children living in Kenya have not been able to gain a decent education as of 2014. Along with this, many children who were attending school were registered at the wrong learning level.
  4. Insufficient Housing: Many children in Kenya live in housing that has no insulation or ventilation. Lack of ventilation, in particular, can lead to harmful indoor air pollution as a result of inefficient cooking utilities.

The Basic Education Act

The government of Kenya has taken many efforts to help with the eradication of child poverty over the years. The 2010 Kenyan Constitution made a point to emphasize that children have the right to basic needs, including shelter, health care and food. It further states that children should have access to free education at the basic level. Since 2010, the Kenyan government-endorsed programs along with the passing of the Basic Education Act in 2013, ensured that educational equality truly occurs within the country. Due to this emphasis, the number of educated children rose by 11% by the year 2014.

The Food and Nutrition Policy

In 2011, the Food and Nutrition Policy emerged in Kenya with the objective of creating food equity for all citizens. This policy has helped improve food access within the country by making it more abundant and making sure that Kenyan citizens receive education about proper food consumption. For infants, the nutrition policy targeted the reduction of women’s workloads so that they could be more available to breastfeed their children. Companies began vigorously marketing breast milk substitutes because of this policy. For children in school, the 2011 policy ensured that government-run educational facilities provided meals during school days. This policy also established programs for young women in need of nutrient supplementation before pregnancy.

Kenya’s National Nutrition Action Plan

Kenya’s National Nutrition Action Plan occurred from 2012 to 2017. This plan focused on the education of governmental policymakers by emphasizing the correlation between food security and the many factors that contribute to child poverty in Kenya. It also highlighted nutrition as a fundamental and constitutional human right.

One key initiative that the National Nutrition Plan promoted was awareness of the benefits of lobbying for greater nutritional funding. This plan included 11 key elements, all of which highlighted the improvement of nutritional status and education on proper nutrition for women and children in Kenya. This plan further ensured that each of its key elements received implementation and support through various agencies, with government planning and budgeting processes accounting for each agency. A result of these implemented strategies included a raise from 39% to 67% of children eating three or more food groups in a day.

Save the Children’s Efforts

Save the Children is a program that has worked toward the direct relief of child poverty in Kenya since 1950. Along with a variety of resources providing services, the organization has worked to establish and grow women and youth programs in Kenya. These programs directly improve income within households, job prospects for children’s futures and overall nutrition among children. Save the Children has also worked to help improve livestock conditions. The prosperity of livestock has a large correlation with sustainable incomes for many households in Kenya. These households are then able to provide stability for their developing children.

Sustainable Development Objectives

While much work has already occurred to help solve child poverty in Kenya, organizations like the U.N. are working to fund initiatives that support its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in order to help eradicate all child resource injustices by 2030 and reduce global poverty overall. With ongoing commitments to upholding the rights of children in Kenya, the nation can reduce child poverty.

– Olivia Bay
Photo: Flickr

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How IOM is Reducing Human Trafficking in Ghana

Human Trafficking in Ghana
Human trafficking is a wicked global business that involves kidnapping people for slavery, forced labor or exploitation, robbing millions of people (largely women and kids) of their homes. Many children experience human trafficking in Ghana.

Human Trafficking in Ghana

Human trafficking in Ghana is a nationwide affair but is more prominent in the Volta region and the oil-producing Western region. Research from August 2016 reported that 35.2% of households consisted of trafficked children with 18% working in the fishing industry, 10% in domestic servitude and a few reports of early and forced marriage.

Since 2002, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), along with several NGOs and international organizations, has aimed to combat human trafficking in Ghana. These organizations mainly work towards rescuing, sheltering and rehabilitating victims.

The Importance of Community Outreach and Education

International Organization for Migration (IOM) organizes programs in the Volta, Central, Greater Accra and Brong-Ahafo Regions of Ghana to strengthen the ties between communities to effectively condemn and prosecute traffickers, provide intensive care for distressed victims and prevent trafficking altogether. The programs intend to educate the villagers about the dangers of child trafficking, international and national legislation on child rights and human trafficking as a culpable offense.

Traffickers do not always realize the immorality of keeping the kids away from their parents and schools. “For instance, Benjamin Tornye, a fisherman for 15 years, used to visit parents and ask them if their children could help him with his work. As he said, “children are good fishers.” He would teach them how to use the boat, swim and dive, and he believed he was doing the right thing.”

Therefore, rescuing trafficked children is much more than just freeing them from the clasps of exploitation. To make a real impact, the authorities must sensitize and educate people about human-trafficking; and create and maintain a peaceful environment for the well-being of the children.

Rehabilitation and Reintegration

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and APPLE, a Ghanaian NGO founded in 1977, both rescue children from trafficking and bring them back to their families. Rescued children first go to a government-run shelter for up to three months before they reunite with their parents. At the shelter, they receive medical checks, health treatment, psychological counseling and basic education.

Additionally, a clinical psychologist inspects the victims to identify the ill-treatment that they have experienced which informs the creation of a personalized plan for rehabilitation. Next, the children attend school or undertake an apprenticeship with the necessary supplies. Otherwise, if they are fortunate enough, they go back home to their parents.

The children who return to their parents get to fulfill the fundamental right of all the children in this world: to grow up with a family. The authorities organize a background test and a compatibility test to ensure that the caretakers are suitable before handing over the child.

The development of the kids –in the family environment, school and apprenticeship– receives monitoring over a period of 2.5 years to ensure the safety and well-being of the child. Further, watchdog groups and surveillance teams have merged to prevent re-trafficking of children. Parents also receive livelihood assistance upon the homecoming of the children.

International Organization for Migration (IOM) educates the locals, national government officials, and the traffickers about the appalling effects of human-trafficking on a child. Further, it raises awareness on the issue and encourages a shift in the mindset of the people.

Accomplishments

With these wonderful initiatives and generous donations by people and organizations from all over the world, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), along with its partner NGOs, has been able to help victims of human trafficking in small ways.

As of now, IOM has rescued 732 trafficked children in Ghana and rehabilitated and reintegrated them into their respective communities. Additionally, of these children, 690 have been able to attend school with 20 graduating high school. Moreover, 10 have completed apprenticeships and are supporting themselves now, while 191 children have been able to reintegrate due to the sponsorship of private donors.

Beyond the apparent benefits to child victims of human trafficking, IOM has aided in other ways as well. In fact, it has granted education regarding trafficking to 130 communities and 48,533 community members. It has also benefitted 468 parents/guardians of trafficked children with micro-business assistance.

Finally, IOM has offered training to 50 social workers in the rehabilitation of child and adult victims of trafficking. It has also provided technical assistance in capacity-building on human trafficking issues to 150 government officials from the Police, Immigration, Naval and Judicial Services.

Government Support

The Government of Ghana introduced several policies, legislation and programs to address the main grounds of human trafficking. Consequently, to set up an all-inclusive approach, the government devised the Human Trafficking Act, 2005 (Act 694), providing a robust authorized framework to prevent human trafficking, prosecute the perpetrators and protect the victims.

The government of Ghana and the NGOs have had a modest impact in curbing the enormity of human trafficking by implementing preventive strategies. The government successfully established a capable board and conducting training sessions for law enforcement, immigration officials and the citizenry. Despite the best efforts to eradicate human trafficking and persecute domestic and international offenders, the number of human trafficking cases remains disappointingly high.

– Prathamesh Mantri
Photo: Flickr

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The Reality of Child Poverty in Haiti

Child poverty in Haiti
Haiti, a small country that borders the Dominican Republic on the Hispaniola island, suffers greatly from poverty. Natural disasters, systemic inequality and diminishing economic opportunities create a dire state of extreme poverty. Specifically, child poverty in Haiti is the major poverty crisis.

More than half of Haiti’s 11.2 million population live on less than $3 a day, and malnutrition affects 65,000 children under 5 years old. Many children under 14 — more than a third of Haiti’s population — do not have ready access to health care, clean water, food security or the right to fair and decent work. The question stands: What does child poverty in Haiti look like today, and what obstacles persist in ending it?

It is easy to forget that statistics reflect the experience of real, living people. Please keep this in mind. Considering this, here are five facts about child poverty in Haiti.

The Statistical Perspective

  1.  Malnutrition: Caloric and nutritive malnutrition affect nearly a third of children in Haiti. Out of every five children, one child is malnourished and one out of 10 is acutely malnourished. Before the age of five, one child out of 14 will die. Those who live deal with the effects of inadequate food supplies. Poor access to vital nutrients means that children are subject to poor health, growth and development.
  2. Education: Despite Haiti’s free publication education, only half of the elementary-aged children are enrolled in school. Millions of disadvantaged parents have very few with little resources to secure education for their children. This is a result of Haiti privatizing 92% of schools.
  3.  Labor and Human Trafficking: Nearly half a million children are orphans in Haiti. A significant proportion of these “lost” children experience exploitation for labor in dangerous conditions. “Host households” take in children whose families cannot provide for them. Many of these children — known colloquially as “restaveks” — end up as victims of human trafficking.
  4.  Health Care: Adequate health care is hard to come by in Haiti. Child immunization has stagnated at 41%. The proportion of children who die before their first birthday has risen by 2% in the last year – from 57% to 59%. HIV, tuberculosis and a variety of other chronic, crippling diseases ail an estimated 20,000 children in Haiti, and treatment is increasingly difficult to obtain.

COVID-19

Haiti is particularly prone to natural disasters, in large part due to its geographical situation in Bermuda. A magnitude 7.0 earthquake ravaged the island of Hispaniola in 2010. A slew of tropical storms, hurricanes and additional earthquakes further compromised Haiti. Nearly 10 years later, Haiti still struggles with recovering from its 2010 earthquake and hurricane Matthew alongside dealing with recent social unrest and COVID-19.

Humanitarian aid efforts are nearing an all-time high for the country, but the efficacy of these programs and endeavors has been questioned. The threats of COVID-19 are not the only ones Haiti must face. The future is increasingly uncertain for millions of Haitians and their children, due to equipment shortages, lack of qualified health care professionals and a worsening economic climate.

Solutions

UNICEF has been implementing relief efforts to provide aid in the aftermath of earthquakes. Additionally, it has helped improve sanitation, nutrition and health care for children. However, if one would like to aid Haiti themselves, for free, they can create momentum on social media to raise awareness about the dire situation in Haiti. A number of ways exist to combat child poverty in Haiti; it just takes action.

– Henry Comes-Pritchett
Photo: Flickr

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Open Heart Orphanage Suffers During the Pandemic

Open Heart OrphanageIn the midst of COVID-19 sweeping through Uganda, six children at Open Heart Orphanage have died. However, it was not the virus that claimed their lives. The tragic deaths were a result of hunger and fever, collateral effects of the pandemic.

Food Struggles During the Pandemic

The people of Uganda must fight to stay healthy during the pandemic as well as combat food insecurity. The issue of food affordability is not only an organic result of the pandemic. Back in April, four Ugandan government officials were arrested for conspiring to inflate COVID-19 relief food prices. The effects are far-reaching. According to UNICEF, 6.7 million children under the age of five could suffer from life-threatening malnutrition in 2020.

The Hidden Victims

Uganda has consistently ranked among the countries with the greatest number of orphaned children in the world, and it has not gone without its controversy. Last year, VICE reported that there are at least 300 “children’s homes” operating without government oversight. Four out of five of these orphans have at least one living parent. Questions arise over the exploitation of these children and the quality of the care they receive. During the coronavirus pandemic, the children are even more vulnerable. Orphans are oftentimes the faces of Facebook scams targeting donors from Western countries.

Children are the “hidden victims” of the virus. They are not particularly susceptible to contracting the disease, but they will be the ones to bear its effects on the social and economic systems. Domestic struggles within the family, surging food prices and a shortage of available medical care have led to malnutrition and displacement, especially in developing countries like Uganda. The result is many children are being left in orphanages.

Open Heart Orphanage

The Borgen Project interviewed Hassan Mubiru, a pastor at Open Heart Orphanage in Bulenga, Kampala, Uganda. Its mission is to help orphans experience a full and productive life. Currently, the organization serves 175 “needy” or orphaned children. The Christian nonprofit aims to provide these children with education, medical assistance, housing, clothing, food and water and the love of God. Due to the pandemic, there have been some obstacles in achieving these goals.

“Coronavirus has crippled most of our activities because we were absolutely unprepared when the lockdown was announced,” said Mubiru. The pastor explains that the organization has always worked below its budget and did not store supplies ahead of time. When COVID-19 hit, they did not have enough resources to sustain themselves.

Even more challenging was the shortage of volunteers. Mubiru stated, “Those who used to individually help are no longer helping. We cannot guarantee salary or their payments.” Unstable payments met with mandates to stay in quarantine have deterred many volunteers from coming to Open Heart Orphanage.

Mubiru says that the biggest issue for Open Heart Orphanage is the lack of available food. “It is extremely difficult or impossible to get food as prices went higher and almost nothing was coming into us. We have so far lost six children due to hunger and fever since the pandemic started. These are things we would have prevented if we had enough food and means of getting treatment in time.”

Open Heart Orphanage strives to help children reach their fullest potential. The nonprofit is a stepping stone for the children and not a final destination. Mubiru believes that children are better off in a home than an orphanage, especially in these times. Mubiru emphasized, “We encourage families to adopt even if this is another crisis because the law governing adoption is tough and high fees.”

– Miska Salemann
Photo: Flickr

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Poverty in the UK Fought Through Film

The United Kingdom is known for being a popular city for tourists with sites, such as Big Ben, the London Eye and Buckingham Palace. However, what may not be as well-known is the fact that the UK struggles with a significant class difference. It has an ever-widening gap between the poor and the affluent, which leads to high rates of poverty in the UK, specifically for children.

Child Poverty

Child poverty is one of the most notable effects of overall poverty in the UK. This poverty crisis struck Britain hard in 1999. Its child poverty proportion became the highest out of all of the western European countries.

In 2016-17, poverty impacted nearly 30% of children — 4.1 million — in the UK. In the following year — 2018-19, the number of children in poverty in the UK increased by 100,000. The trend is on an upward spike rather than its 2003 downward rate when child poverty was made a priority. Poverty in the UK needs to be addressed, especially among the youth. It leads to increased hardships in life from education to mental and physical health to employment and so much more.

Use of the Film Industry

Films produce major results in ending poverty. The film industry has positively impacted poverty in the UK in many ways. For one, the film industry creates many job opportunities. In 2009, the core UK film industry created or impacted nearly 100,000 jobs relating to film production, sales and tourism. Furthermore, portrayals of the UK in films contribute heavily to tourism and yearly account for about £1.9 billion. That brings the total UK film industry contribution in 2009 to raising the GDP by more than £4.5 billion.

The improved economy can be a promising solution for aiding the UK’s children out of poverty. The country can use the funds to help out the struggling citizens, focusing specifically on the poor. In this way, films pose as a promising solution for poverty aid in other countries as well.

“Poor Kids”

The amount of money and the impact the film industry has on the UK is astounding and a promising solution for poverty. However, the impact one film made for children in poverty is even more remarkable.

The film, “Poor Kids,” has made great strides toward improving the lives of impoverished UK children. The film illustrates the living situations of three families in poverty through the lens of the children. Courtney (age 8), Paige (age 10) and Sam (age 11) give detailed and heart-wrenching accounts of their experiences growing up in poverty. The film received much acclaim. It was a Broadcast Best Documentary Nominee, a Learning on Screen Nominee, a Televisual Bulldog Best Documentary Nominee and received the Chicago Film Festival Gold Plaque for Social and Political Documentary in 2012.

Films awards aside, “Poor Kids” sparked change in the community. Make Lunch is a program that began after Poor Kids debuted as a direct result of the film. The program contributes free meals to children during the times when school is not in session and when children could potentially go for a long period without food. In the summer of 2012, as many as 13 lunch kitchens were providing the free lunches.

And That’s A Wrap

The effects of poverty in the UK are prevalent, notably in the large number of impoverished children. The worsening situation provides a sense of sorrow to the country, but a solution presents itself. Films not only contribute to the wealth of a country, but they provide jobs as well. Both of these aspects could be potential resources to utilize when fighting poverty.

Additionally, films bring about emotion, and that creates change. The inspiration that “Poor Kids” ignited contributed to a charity that helps the children in poverty. With results, such as the Make Lunch program, films can yield great benefits for poverty in the UK and the world.

– Hailee Shores
Photo: Flickr

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Links Between South African Poverty and Education

South African poverty and educationSouth Africa is a country with 19.6 million children, making up about 35% of its total population of 56.5 million people. Of these 19.6 million children, about 98% have “attended some form of an educational facility.” However, these high attendance rates do not mean high-quality education and lack of academic resources is a large contributing factor to the correlation between South African poverty and education.

Education in South Africa

Despite having high rates of education enrollment, the quality of education in South Africa is poor. Reports have shown that of the students who attended school for five years, only half can do basic math. Furthermore, there are little to no standards for the teachers to be held at. About 10% of teachers across the country are absent from school on any given day and 79% of grade six math teachers do not have the content knowledge to be teaching at their respective level.

Education is compulsory until grade nine, and over the years, there have been increasing numbers of drop-out students, for a variety of reasons. The main reason is unequal access to resources as a result of poverty. The disparities between female and male students also continually present issues in the South African education system, especially with low percentages of girls pursuing careers in science, math or technology.

In addition, South African schools have struggled to teach basic skills such as reading and writing as well as early development for young children. Only 38.4% of children ages zero to four attended a school system such as day-care, playgroup or pre-kindergarten programs. The early development issue is further seen as 46.8% of parents say they do not read with their children and 43.15% say that they do not color or draw with their children.

South African Poverty and Education Correlation

South Africa has struggled with high rates of poverty for many years and the correlation between South African poverty and education is present in many different aspects of the relationship. In rural areas in the former homelands, about 81% of children are below the poverty line and 44% of children in urban areas live in poverty as well. Education in rural areas suffers especially, simply as a result of the barriers presented by the location. For example, critical resources such as water, electricity, books and technology are missing from many schools, which present obstacles for South African children to have a complete educational experience. Furthermore, the location of schools in comparison to students’ homes, present long commutes. Without reliable transportation, students and teachers both struggle to consistently arrive at school.

Why Low Education Enables Poverty

Poor education is a leading factor in continuing the cycle of poverty. Research continually supports the idea that children who suffer from high rates of poverty are more likely to drop out of school after grade nine as a result of the barriers poverty creates. Increasing the quality of education results in a growing economy, lowers income inequalities and decreases the risk of disease and violence. Without a basic education, South African children struggle to become members of the workforce, and as a result, cannot escape poverty. Education not only teaches basic skills such as reading and writing but helps to develop important qualities such as strong communication and social skills. Without this, it is difficult for children to become working members of society. Furthermore, education differences between the poor and the rich as well as males and females, increases inequality, resulting in poor systems that cannot fix the underlying issues.

Partners for Possibility

Partners for Possibility is an example of a grassroots organization that works to fix the issues between South African poverty and education all while improving businesses in the United States. Business leaders from companies in the United States go overseas to South Africa for a 12-month program in which they teach principals and leaders of schools about leadership and engagement. By doing so, business professionals help to change the unstable and ineffective system of South African education, while simultaneously learning about poverty and culture in South Africa. The program has had extremely positive outcomes as education leaders, teachers and parents become more invested and engaged in the school system, which in turn, benefits the children.

South African poverty and education are strongly linked and this presents many issues for children. However, it is not an impossible mission to address and Partners for Possibility demonstrates the mutual return for U.S. businesses and South Africans that comes with finding these solutions.

– Alyssa Hogan
Photo: Flickr

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3 NGOs Dedicated to Ending Child Poverty in Mongolia

Child Poverty in Mongolia
According to the World Bank, “two in five poor people in Mongolia are children under the age of 15.” However, many organizations are working to combat the effects of child poverty in Mongolia. Among the different NGOs making direct efforts to help children in Mongolia, three are making significant strides in changing the lives of as many vulnerable young people as possible. Below are the three NGOs tackling child poverty in Mongolia.

3 NGOs Dedicated to Ending Child Poverty in Mongolia

  1. The Lotus Children’s Centre – For the past 25 years, the Lotus Children’s Centre has been caring for children who were abused and abandoned. Didi Ananda Kalika founded the Lotus Children’s Centre and it is currently located in Gachuurt. Around 65-75 children call the center home, receiving vital necessities such as nutrition, health care and education. The center strives to provide children with the tools they need in order to escape the cycle of poverty in adulthood and thrive as healthy individuals. Even after the children leave the center, the organization continues to support their needs through education and career opportunities.
  2. Flourishing Future Mongolia – Observing the painful reality of families losing their children to the streets due to poverty, Aase Sims, Susan Griffeth, Ruthild Beck, Nergui Purevsuren and Oyunbat created the Flourishing Future Community Center in 2001 in the slums of a ger district. The organization has continuously focused on supporting marginalized families and their children in Mongolia. Flourishing Future focuses on providing scholarships, meals, education and medical care, and partnering with the local girls’ shelter and the local orphanage. With the help of international donors, 36 students received scholarships in 2016-2017 to further their education and pursue their career goals. Flourishing Future advocates for educating not only children going into first grade but also for adults who need vocational training and English training. The organization distributes food with the condition that the children in the family must be attending school. Furthermore, they support the local orphanage by not only providing English lessons and outings but also running a yearly summer camp for the children. In addition to providing food twice a month to families who qualify for the program, the NGO also helps families stay warm by providing them with firewood.
  3. Asral – When the Soviet Union collapsed, many families who lost their homes migrated to Ulaanbaatar. In 2001, Venerable Panchen Otrul Rinpoche founded Asral in order to provide support to families so that no more children would be abandoned on the streets. With the help of the community and local leaders, the NGO provides education, food and daily needs for the children from marginalized families. The Hot Meal Project is one of the main projects that directly help impoverished children in Mongolia. The Hot Meal project supports 30 children from the most impoverished families by providing daily meals, health care, financial needs, clothes and other basic needs.

Looking Ahead

The Lotus Children’s Centre, Flourishing Future Mongolia and Asral are working every day to protect the lives of children and their families. With the assistance of the NGOs, children in Mongolia are able to stay with their families. By directly helping these families, the NGOs are changing lives in a positive way.

– Hakyung Kim
Photo: Pixabay

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Aberdeenshire Addresses Child Poverty Problems

Aberdeenshire Addresses Child Poverty Problems

On September 8, 2020, Aberdeenshire City Council addressed their growing child poverty problem and created a plan of action.

About Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire sits on the northeast coast of Scotland, with a population of 458,000.  Known for being the home of Marischal College, the city is located approximately 120 miles north of the nation’s capital, Edinburgh. Aberdeenshire is Europe’s oil capital, supplying most of its population with work in the oil and gas sectors. Aberdeenshire is also called Aberdeen, due to its city being part of the historic country. However, Aberdeen holds a different independent council area that is within Aberdeenshire’s council.

Child Poverty in Aberdeenshire

In February 2020, the Aberdeenshire council announced that approximately 8,000 children were living in poverty. This rising number directly correlates to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the city and around the world. Aberdeenshire Council’s communities committee announced the citizens’ universal credit claims have risen to 75% since the pandemic started. This issue is not unfamiliar to this region, as more than 4 million children live in poverty in the United Kingdom alone.

Due to the closing of many businesses, there has also been a reduction in job availability and employment opportunities because of the limited number of vacant positions. Since the beginning of the pandemic, unemployment in Aberdeenshire has increased from 12.9% to 14%. The lack of job opportunities and the number of credit scores rising all contribute to Aberdeenshire’s citizens being unable to afford the increasingly higher costs of living.

Unaffordable living is a leading cause of child poverty. Instability in their housing often causes children to move schools and thus inhibit their continuous education. Children with unstable living conditions are far more likely not to finish their education and therefore have no way to escape poverty. In 2016, an Urban Wire Institution research project found that increasing household stability could reduce child poverty by almost 21%. The Aberdeenshire City Council addressed these numbers in a meeting on February 11th.

During the meeting, the Committee also mentioned that child poverty numbers were much higher in Aberdeenshire than in soundings cities. There are around 1,239 children living in poverty in Kincardine and Mearns since the virus, which is a vast difference from Aberdeenshire. Evidence suggests that these numbers are not getting any smaller. Scotland’s Poverty and Inequality Commission and Children’s Commissioner warned that child poverty rates could potentially “rocket.”

Action by the Council

The vast differences in child poverty encouraged councillors to take action to reduce the Aberdeenshire child poverty problem. On September 8, the council made the first concrete steps to create a child poverty reduction plan. In addition, the elected members decided to focus on the root cause of child poverty to address the problem on a more fundamental level. This plan creates and finds affordable living situations for Aberdeenshire citizens, therefore attempting to solve the issue of childhood instability and in turn promote an education that enables children to escape poverty. The city plans on combatting child poverty by helping its citizens make the most of their income and build people’s capabilities. While this could be difficult due to the ongoing pandemic, Aberdeenshire plans to boost employability and promote better choices for its residents.

Anne Stirling, Aberdeenshire Committee Chairwoman, said she’s happy to finally create programs that will “help people to maximize their income and get the support they require in terms of retraining.”

– Mackenzie Reese
Photo: Flickr

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Ekal Vidyalaya Focuses on Education and Indian Children

Education and Indian ChildrenOver 100,000 schools and just as many teachers deliver education in even the most traditionally unreachable, rural parts of India because of one foundation. Ekal Vidyalaya, a nonprofit originally inspired by social research and activism, recognizes the paramount goal of establishing educational access for every child in rural India and approaches it directly. Inspired and built in the 1980s, Ekal Vidyalaya conducts multinational fundraising, transforms nontraditional school models into working solutions and impacts the lives of nearly 2.8 million students through its efforts. Bringing education and Indian children without teachers and schools together is a fundamental pillar of the Ekal mission, which transcends borders in an impassioned quest to substantively create change.

Ekal Vidyalaya: Mission and History

Ekal Vidyalaya’s mission is to raise up schools and rural communities with “basic education, digital literacy, skill development, health awareness and rural entrepreneurship” in unison with farming maximization efforts that are taught. These wide-ranging, self-identified aspects of the organization’s mission reflect some of the initial issues that Ekal Vidyalaya, even before it was known as such, identified. Dr. Rakesh Kumar Popli and Dr. Rajneesh Arora, among others who were analytically evaluating regions in India in order to determine areas of concern, partnered with other leading scientists and activists of the time in order to raise awareness towards educational discrepancies and other health and social issues. Over time, education and Indian children became focal points of an effort that became known as Ekal Vidyalaya and refining steps brought the ancillary and primary systems of aid into reality.

Ekal Vidyalaya’s Methodology and Goals

In order to make progress on its significant goals, Ekal Vidyalaya relies on donations, volunteerism and community outreach. The name itself is a direct reference to the impact structure: one-teacher schools are essentially called Ekal Vidyalayas and they are the way that the nonprofit integrates itself into towns and villages in order to raise literacy and improve conditions. Once the school is established and working well, the organization then adds health services and skill development to bring economic opportunities for the villagers.

COVID-19 Considerations

Adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic is a continuous battle for the organization, particularly for its grassroots-based donation effort. Despite this, Ekal has been able to leverage its structure to transition training centers into mask making centers and provide over a reported 2.3 million people with food supplies using volunteers and other community organizations. Early October saw a global Ekal conference wholly online, where goals for the next five years were outlined. Various elements of the organization, from youth divisions to board members, committed to increasing not only education efforts but practical village-to-village communication and economic growth. Bringing together education and Indian children remains a core pillar of the estimated budget, and technological revolutions in the forms of roaming mobile centers and tablets prove Ekal’s commitment to continued adaptability. As challenges present themselves, Ekal Vidyalaya strives to preserve its mission and still improve upon it, which will be a necessary factor for change in the years still to come.

– Alan Mathew
Photo: Flickr

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Poverty in Panama Affects Rural Areas and Children

Poverty in Panama
Panama — the narrow bridge of land that connects North and South America. The tropical country is renowned for its natural beauty and diverse plant, animal and birdlife. Yet, all that glitters is not gold. Panama’s economy is highly unequal and there is a wide gap between the wealthy and the impoverished. Poverty in Panama is as much of a prominent feature of the country as its landscape.

Rural Poverty

Ethnicity and geographic location determine one’s poverty level in Panama. Panamanians who live in rural areas do not have adequate access to resources, such as hospitals and schools. This is a result of the lack of infrastructure as well as few professional doctors and teachers or mentors in rural areas.

Panama is the second-worst in income distribution in Latin America, which leads to sector-specific poverty. Unpaved roads in the country make travel especially difficult for farmers. Accordingly, farmers do not end up selling their crops in big cities where they can earn a larger income. Thus begins a chain of poverty in Panama that materializes as poor hygiene and sanitation, child labor, malnutrition, and eventually, another generation living a poor quality of life.

Child Poverty

About 27.7% of Panamanian children live in poverty and 12% experience malnutrition. Failure to register children at birth causes many to go without citizenship. Thus, the government is uncertain of the nation’s exact child population and cannot justly allocate money to the “nonexistent.”

Around 15% of children are victims of early marriages. The legal age to marry in Panama is 16 for boys and 14 for girls. However, most of these children are not registered with the government, so parents marry children off at ages as young as 10, mostly to escape the circumstances of poverty.

The minimum age for working in Panama is 15. Even with this being the case, 5-year-old children often work carrying bricks on construction sites. Several underage workers, or child laborers, even appear in big cities like Panama City and Tocumen. To earn a few dollars more, families force their children to work. However, this comes at the cost of children losing education and facing exploitation.

The Rays of Light

Panama is taking steps to fight poverty. From 2015 to 2017, poverty in Panama declined from 15.4% to 14.1%. In the same time span, extreme poverty decreased from 6.7% to 6.6%. Additionally, multiple NGOs are working to address poverty and other prominent issues in Panama.

The Calicanto Foundation, established in 1994 in Panama, aims to empower Panamanians living in poverty. The organization runs a “personal and professional/vocational training program for women who live in marginalized communities with high levels of poverty.” At the end of the program, participants receive a certificate for employment in the hospitality sector. These skills empower women to achieve economic sufficiency to support their families and break cycles of poverty.

The country, with aid of NGOs and the government, has the potential to bridge the income inequality gap and establish an equitable society for all, regardless of class, region or ethnicity. Panama can be as bright and colorful as its beaches for not only the urbanites but also the rural citizens.

– Riddhi Bhattacharya
Photo: Flickr