Child Poverty and Deprivation:
Children themselves realize that poverty in childhood can lead to poverty in adulthood. For a child poverty can last a lifetime. Where a child lacks parental support,
experiences violence and abuse or fails to get an education the consequences are a diminished adulthood which is hard to escape.
Further, this poverty then sets the foundations into which their own children will be born, and the inter-generational cycle of poverty continues.
Children themselves realize that poverty in childhood can lead to poverty in adulthood. For a child poverty can last a lifetime. Where a child lacks parental support,
experiences violence and abuse or fails to get an education the consequences are a diminished adulthood which is hard to escape.
Further, this poverty then sets the foundations into which their own children will be born, and the inter-generational cycle of poverty continues.
 |
|
Dec.2016: Destiny Pre-school children in Namuwongo, a slum within
Kampala district.
|
 |
| Dec. 2016: One of our staff at Destiny school |
 |
| Dec. 2016: Some our Primary 3 children with their End of Term 3 results and report cards, 9th Dec.2016. |
 |
| Destiny school children participating in co-curricular activities few meters away from the school in Namuwongo slum, Kampala. |
 |
| Children eating porridge at Destiny School |
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has exacted a terrible toll on children and their families. During the 30 years of the global HIV epidemic, an estimated 17 million children have lost one or both parents due to AIDS; 90 percent of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, 3.4 million children under age 15 are living with HIV. Despite some decline in HIV adult prevalence worldwide and increasing access to treatment, the number of children affected by or vulnerable to HIV remains alarmingly high.
ReplyDeleteThe social and emotional effects of the disease are numerous and profound. While poverty is at the core of many of these issues, HIV/AIDS deeply complicates the environment both for the consequences of and the response to the epidemic. As a result of the social effects of HIV/AIDS, millions of HIV-affected children are highly vulnerable, as they are more likely to be victims of abuse, live in institutional care or on the street, and engage in hazardous and/or exploitive labor.
More specifically, children who live with an ill adult or who have been orphaned by AIDS have a dramatically greater risk of abuse and exploitation, school drop-out (as children leave school to care for ailing family members), and psychosocial distress.
Orphaned and vulnerable children are also far more likely to move from being “affected” by the virus to becoming infected, as well as facing other risks. This is especially true for adolescent girls who have lost a mother and who are then more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior. < UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic>