In honor of remembering one of the greatest tragedies to hit our country, September 11th, it is important for us as a country to protect some of the most vulnerable citizens of all: Our children.
Please read the post below and learn more on what we as a nation can do to ensure that no children are forgotten in times of tragedy. Also, please share on Facebook and twitter with your friends and family. This is something we can all work together to easily change.
A memorial in honor of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementarry School shooting. Photo credit: Save the Children
Last week Save the Children released their 2013 National Report Card on Protecting Children in Disasters, a study showing where our nation is at when it comes to protecting children in times of emergencies. The report titled “Unaccounted For: A National Report Card on Protecting Children in Disasters” comes after a heartbreaking year of disasters and tragedies such as the elementary school massacre at Sandy Hook as well as the Hurricane Sandy and Oklahoma tornado. Unfortunately, the report clearly demonstrates that we have a long way to go in protecting our children against disaster.
Out of the four standards that states must implement to protect children in the face of disaster – (1)states must require all schools and child care centers to have an evacuation and (2) relocation plan, (3) a family reunification plan and (4) a plan for children with special needs – only four states took action to meet all standards this year. Furthermore, 28 states still lack basic measures to safeguard children in child care and schools. It is apparent that something needs to be done.
The end of summer means back to school for millions of children around the world. Tomorrow my two children will be starting school and as a parent it is in my uttermost interest to ensure they are healthy and ready to learn.
We all understand that education is critical to improving our lives and future. Yet tragically education is not an equal opportunity for millions of children around the world. Per Education Envoy, an estimated 61 million children are shut out of primary school, an astounding number.
Children in a Delhi slum are able to attend school thanks to the support of NGOs like Pratham.
MDG stands for Millennium Development Goal. It may sound like some kind of fancy jargon however in my opinion MDGs are pretty amazing. Established at the start of a brand new millennium in 2000 by world leaders at the United Nations, the 8 MDGs represent what we should strive for to make the world a better, more equitable place. The MDGs build upon years of global teamwork and partnership in the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration and aim to achieve 8 major measurable targets by 2015. These 8 targets are shown in the infographic below.
“The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.” (Source: United Nations)
To learn more specifics about the MDGs please click here.
“In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals.” (UNDP)
When I was in India this past May with Mom Bloggers for Social Good, I saw firsthand how safe drinking water and sanitation needs impact people living in extreme poverty. I spent a scorching afternoon with temperatures climbing almost to 120 degrees Fahrenheit touring one of WaterAid’s work sites, an unauthorized slum named the Vivekananda Camp.
Women living outside the Vivekananda Camp, an unauthorized slum that ironically is located right behind the walls of the American Embassy in Delhi.
At this one location, the people had been fortunate to finally receive somewhere safe and hygienic to use the bathroom. A community toilet compound. Although the slum did not have running water, at least it had somewhere people could go to take care of their bodily needs and help eliminate the spread of deadly diseases and the horrible humiliation of open defecation.
As I stood outside the Community Toilet Complex (CTC), I couldn’t help but rest my eyes on a painfully slow-moving woman. A woman who had undoubtedly spent her entire life living within the confines of a slum. She was hunched over and bent on her cane and slowly dragged her feet across the ground, one step at a time, as she left the Community Toilet Complex we had just toured.
On a recent flight I was reading an article on Martin Luther King Jr. in the Delta Sky magazine in which they interviewed some of Atlanta’s top civil rights activists in honor of the 50th anniversary of his famous speech “I have a Dream”. One comment made by Helene Gayle, President and CEO of CARE USA, an international humanitarian organization, stood out. When asked which words of Dr. King’s speech resonated with her the most she said, “I’m often asked why should I care about people in other countries. And I refer back to his quote, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. If we turn a blind eye to injustice anywhere, we’re giving in to that here as well. There is no divide between them and us“. (Delta Sky Magazine, August 2013).
Children living in Sub-Saharan Africa (photo credit: Wikipedia free commons)
Today I participated in a webinar hosted by the US Fund for UNICEF on the 2013 State of the World’s Children Report: Children with Disabilities. I honestly had little knowledge about the unique and challenging issues faced by millions of children around the world with disabilities. In fact, an estimated 93 million children in the world live with a moderate or severe disability, an astounding number especially given the fact that 80% of these children with disabilities live in the developing world.
UNICEF: State of the World’s Children 2013 Report cover
Per Cara Elizabeth Yar Khan, a Reporting Specialist for UNICEF Haiti, children with disabilities are the most marginalized, neglected people in the world often living a life of isolation, exclusion and denial of basic human rights. Oftentimes children with disabilities in developing world are treated like they are invisible and live a life of stigma, discrimination and suffering. In cases of poverty, children with disabilities will often get the least amount of food, health care and educational opportunities, and will spend their lives hidden inside their homes. Unfortunately these children are often exploited and physically abused.
The US Fund for UNICEF is trying to change the lives of children living with disabilities by promoting their basic human rights and eliminating the many barriers these children face in everyday life by promoting inclusion and transforming the way societies view and treat children with disabilities.
Progress has been made in such countries as Bangladesh, India and Namibia who have launched social protection measures to help children with disabilities. However, much work still needs to be done. The US Fund for UNICEF is working hard to raise global awareness about the 93 million children – most whom are often forgotten – who live with a disability.
In 2008, I spent a week volunteering at an orphanage in Costa Rica where I witnessed firsthand the tragic realities of children with disabilities. About one-fourth of the children left behind on the front doorstep of the orphanage where children with moderate to severe disabilities. These were children that their parents didn’t want and some of these children were so abused that it caused brain damage. It was a disheartening experience yet also taught me that these children are just as loving and wonderful as any other child. They are just different and have unique challenges.
One of the children named Anita in particular reminded me that there is hope for children with disabilities. Anita was left at the doorstep of the orphanage when she was four years old, so badly beaten by her parents that she could hardly walk. A fellow volunteer from New York was so moved by her story that she told her father, a highly successful surgeon, about Anita’s plight and how she would never be able to walk again. A year later, Anita was flown to the United States along with her adoptive mother and her legs were repaired, free of charge. Although Anita could not walk correctly and would tire easily without her walker, she was finally at six years old able to go to the park, play with other children and be a kid once again instead of be confined to a chair. It was the most beautiful message of hope I’d ever seen.
Over the past ten days, Jennifer James, founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good and Global Team of 200, has been in Zambia as an International Press Reporting fellow covering HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and how these diseases impact mothers and children. She was selected to report in Zambia along with nine other new media journalists, who have all covered these topics from different perspectives. It has been amazing reading all the stories about their work and learning more about the conditions in Zambia.
One of the places that Jennifer and the fellows visited that I found truly inspiring was the Fountain of Hope center in Lusaka, Zambia. The Fountain of Hope was founded in 1996 by a group of local Zambians as a way to help rehabilitate the growing population of street children in Zambia’s capital. In a country of 14 million, it has been estimated that there are 75,000 street children throughout the country and 2,000 alone in the nation’s capital Lusaka. Oftentimes these children spend their days on the streets, not going to school and doing whatever they can to feed themselves and stay alive.
Fountain of Hope Center (Photo thanks to Jennifer James).
Author’s note: This is the third post documenting my visit on behalf of Mom Bloggers for Social Good to see Save the Children’s work at the Indira Kalyan slum in Delhi, India.To read the first and second post click on the links.
Heading to our next visit within the Indira Kalyan Camp
Having a baby should be one of the most joyous times of a woman’s life. Yet tragically throughout the developing world childbirth is also one of the most deadly times of a woman’s life as well as the life of her newborn child.
Per Save the Children an alarming 3 million babies died globally in their first month of life (2010) and India continues to have a persistently high rate of newborn mortality accounting for 29% of all first day deaths globally or 309,000 a year.
India is not an easy place to be a mother either. A decade ago close to 75,000 women died during childbirth every year. Although that number has been reduced to 56,000 in 2010, it is still way too high, especially given the tragic fact that many of these deaths are preventable.
In India, there is no place that it is more dangerous to be a woman giving birth than in the slums where woman lack access to basic health care services, midwifes and hospitals. Yet organizations like Save the Children are making remarkable progress in educating women about prenatal and postnatal care as well as the importance of delivering their child in a hospital.
Author’s note: This is the second post documenting my visit on behalf of Mom Bloggers for Social Good to see Save the Children’s work at the Indira Kalyan slum in Delhi, India. To read the first post click here.
India has made a tremendous amount of progress over the last two decades fighting to save the lives of mothers and children. A decade ago close to 75,000 women died during childbirth every year and this number has been reduced to 56,000 in 2010. Significant progress has also been made in newborn survival. Since 1990, India has reduced the rate of deaths of children under 5 by 46% or almost in half. Despite the major achievements, newborn and maternal dealths are still way too high given the tragic fact that many of these deaths are largely preventable. The situation is especially dire in India, the second most populous country in the world, with a hugely disproportionate percentage of maternal and newborn deaths.
Inside The Indira Kalyan Camp, an unauthorized slum in Delhi
Nearly 1 in 5 deaths of children under age five are in India. (1.6 million children or 29% of the global total ).
19% of these deaths take place on the day a child is born and 53% occur within the first month of birth.
Large scale inequities within India continue to persist today in terms of wealth disparities, rural-urban divide, education, age of mother, caste, which means that not all babies born in India have an equal change of survival.
Children within the Indira Kalyan Camp pose for a picture
India, the second most populous country in the world, is known for her rich, vibrant culture and civilization that has spanned thousands of years. Over the last two decades, India’s economy has grown at breakneck speed becoming the world’s 10th largest economy in 2011 and is projected to be among the fifth largest by 2050 (per a recent report by economic think-tank Centre for Economics and Business Research). Yet despite the enormous economic success of the “Elephant“, as India has been sometimes called, tragically a large percentage of the Indian population have been left behind.
Millions of Indians live in dire poverty especially the people who have left the villages and have come to the urban centers searching for a better life. According to the World Bank, rural and urban poverty in India remains painfully high, holding the unfortunate record of having the largest concentration of poor people in the world: 240 million rural poor and 72 million urban poor. With poverty, an immeasurable suffering has also taken hold. Hunger, malnutrition and a high level of preventable diseases and death have struck India’s poor and have unfairly impacted women and children.
Smiling and hopeful Indian girls within a Delhi slum are sadly thin.
Music has been used for centuries to give people a voice to tell stories, entertain and inspire. Perhaps it is the emotional feelings one gets from listening to music that allows so many of us to connect with it. Music can bring us back years ago to an exact time and place within our hearts. Who can forget the words and rhythm of their first dance? Or the music you used to blast in your car during the summer with your windows rolled down?
The power of music has also been brilliantly used as a voice to garner support of the masses and impact societal change. Protest songs decrying great human injustices such as slavery, apartheid, violence and war, have become powerful tools by musicians to push politicians and governments to making the world a better and more just place.
ONE, a global advocacy organization created by Bono and backed by 3 million members worldwide to fit against global poverty and hunger, has launched a new music campaign called agit8, as a way to use music to push change. Agit8 will inspire people to take action and leaders to make big commitments on figthing chronic malnutrition during the upcoming G8 meeting in Northern Ireland June 17-18th.
Education is without doubt one of the key ways to lifting people out of poverty. In India, a country of over one billion people and an estimated 400 million living below the poverty line (World Bank 2010), education has become a matter of survival for the millions of children living in poverty in both rural and urban Indian.
Per the 2012 the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER): Learning levels have dipped to an all-time low. So, almost half the 6-7 year-olds (Class I) in India cannot read even one letter in any language, over 57% cannot read any English while almost 40% cannot recognize numbers between 1 and 9, the report said. Access to education is becoming a key problem and obstacle for many of India’s poor children.
Pratham is the largest NGO working in India to provide quality education to the country’s millions of underprivileged children. Pratham’s multi-pronged approach ensures the following four initiatives:
Enrollment in schools increases.
Learning in schools and communities increases.
The education net reaches children who are unable to attend school.
Models are replicated and scaled up to serve large numbers of children to achieve a large scale impact.
Source: Pratham
What is so great about Pratham is that they work with the government and view their programs as a supplement not a replacement for education to underprivileged kids. As resources become more and more stretched and more migrants are moving from their rural villages to the slums of urban India, there is a dire need for educational services and Pratham has worked hard at filling the gap. It is no surprise that Pratham’s model is “Every child in school and learning well”.
While we were in India, Jennifer James (Founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good) and I had a chance to visit one of Pratham’s many urban learning centers located in anEast Delhi slum, where we witnessed firsthand the dire need of education and the techniques of learning that Pratham is applying to some of India’s poorest children.
Inside the classroom children are learning basic English schools.
