Children

I am often asked the question, “What do children think? Therefore I am looking to share their views, and hope that this post will only be the beginning of inspirational and thought provoking words from children.

As they say, ‘From the mouths of babes!’:

When asked, “What would you say if I told you their where kids your age that had to work?”, Andrew, aged 5 , said: “That’s silly!” I asked him, “Why is that silly?”, “Because kids are supposed to play, and not work until your old.” I agree with Andrew on this one.

This question intrigued the 5 year old, Andrew, a great deal and he began to ask me lots of questions in return. I must admit I figured the topic would quickly die out, however to my surprise it was a difficult one to end. Of course the young boy wanted to know why children would have to work, and what kind of work they would have to do, as he was very dismayed at the fact that children somewhere in the world had to work. Try explaining to a 5 year old that a child his own their may have to work making things, work in a field, or on the street selling things…nothing you can say makes any sense to them. Of course the idea of a child makes no sense to a child, for children should not be working. As Andrew told me, a child should go to school, play and be loved by their Mommy and Daddy. To Andrew the only people that work are Mommy’s and Daddy’s, and their is no reason for why a child should work.

“What countries do children have to work?
Because I don’t want to go there!”

I asked Andrew what he thought we should do for the children that did have to work, and he told me we should make their Mommy and Daddy let them play. I was told that it was not just “silly”, but “mean” to make children work.

In Zimbabwe, youth militia camps may close due to poor economic conditions. The camps conditions have been declining, leaving the children in poor living conditions and with an inadequate diet. ‘Washington Katema, national coordinator of the 300,000-strong Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU), told IRIN, “the national youth programme is essentially an extension of the ruling party, and we expect that when next year’s budget is announced, before the end of this year [2007], they will receive substantial funding, so that many recruits will be able to be trained before being unleashed on the population just before the elections.”

In Sri Lanka, orphanages are being used as last resort by parents of 19,000 children. “UNICEF says in most cases it is a family member who leaves the child at an orphanage. “In Sri Lanka institutional care has become the sole option for many children because their family unit is destroyed, by such things as parental loss, separation or parental conflict. Another reason may be the war and displacement factors,” UNICEF said in a 24 July report entitled, “Out of Sight - Out of Mind.” Poverty is also a root cause with the family feeling they cannot afford to adequately provide for the child, according to the UN agency.” Orphanages are feeling the strain, on an already poor infrastructure, with little funding and few beds, children are being left in extremely poor living conditions.

Women, children at increased risk in flood-affected areas, in Pakistan. Poor sanitation and a lack of clean water, are putting children at higher risks for disease. It appears most of the children have developed skin conditions, however other water carried diseases can can cause Protozoal infections, which cause symptoms such as abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea. Jabeen Abbas, a child protection officer with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN. “They have more emerging needs now which are not being met: they are more vulnerable, they need medical help, they live in shelters or camps set up in local schools, they don’t have clean drinking water - and the flood-waters in Dadu, for example, are just not receding.”

A 50-year-old grandmother named Minda has lost count of the number of pregnancies she has terminated in the Philippines, where abortion is illegal and strictly taboo, but where about half a million women end their pregnancies every year. Backstreet abortions may become more common as a U.S. government aid program plans to stop distributing contraceptives in the Philippines in 2008. This will leave birth control up to the government which under the influence of Catholic bishops advocates unreliable natural birth control methods rather than the pill and condoms. (Reuters)

School and books necessities not luxuries in Burkina Faso, and the government has shown it’s support by providing some 10.5 million have been distributed free of charge to primary school students. The government launched “a pilot project to give no-fee schooling in a push to curb the number of people in the country growing up without even basic education.”

No one is ever too small to have an impact on the life of a child! Your effect on a child, and the world around, is bigger than you think. For a small action can often have an even longer lasting effect.

So start to share your impact today…discuss some of the topics and stories on this site, you may inspire the next big humanitarian; Listen to a child, they may have a cry for help you haven’t heard; become a Big Sister or Brother, or even a Foster Parent; Donate your money or time to one of the many children’s causes. Regardless of what you do, never underestimate the impact you have on a child, their world and our global community.

While you are never too small to have an impact, nor is a child. Children too can have a lasting impact on the lives of other children, and our world.

Children around the world are reaching out for help…give your hand to one of them today!

*Anita Roddick (1942-2007), was the founder of the Body Shop and while she was often under the spotlight and criticized she was a lifetime humanitarian. With her husband she saw that much needed orphanages where built, with the charity Children On The Edge.

Please see my links for more information, and other organizations, such as Kids Can Make A Difference.

For the first time in recorded history (since 1960), the child morality rate has dropped below 10 million, now at 9.7 million. If birth rates remained the same as in 1960, when child morality was at 20 million, the actual rate for child morality would be somewhere around 25 million. This dramatic decrease in child deaths is a victory for children’s health worldwide, and one to be celebrated. However, this is not only a victory, but an illustration on how we can save the lives of many more millions of children around the world, if we work together as an international community.

Much of the decrease in early childhood deaths, is do to the promotion and use of treated mosquito nets, vitamin drops, nutritional supplements, increased breast feeding, prenatal care, and vaccinations for such diseases as measles and polio.

The estimated drop, to 9.7 million deaths of children under 5, “is a historic moment,” said Ann M. Veneman, Unicef’s Executive Director, noting that it shows progress toward the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of cutting the rate of infant mortality in 1990 by two-thirds by 2015. “But there is no room for complacency. Most of these deaths are preventable, and the solutions are tried and tested.” (Child Mortality at Record Low; Further Drop Seen)

Unfortunately success has not come to every country, and many seem to be taking a step backwards, not forwards, in the fight for children’s health.  “Over the past 10 to 15 years in most sub-Saharan African countries, there has been basically no discernible improvement in child mortality,” said Ruth Levine, Vice President of the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research organization in Washington (Under-5 Mortality Drops to Record Low). Such countries include Congo and Sierra Leone, which have both seen child morality rates increase rather than decrease, much of which is due to the high instance of HIV/AIDS.

While many are celebrating the decrease in child deaths, let us not forget that the majority of these deaths are almost entirely preventable, and thus we must look to increase our reach to promote health care and immunizations. Imagine how dramatic the childhood morality rate would be if we ensured that all of the worlds children received their immunizations! Nonetheless immunizations are only half of the story, as more than half of childhood deaths are due to, or related to, malnutrition.  Thus we must not look just to the improvement of health care systems and delivery, but also to sustainable development and more beneficial agricultural practices.

Ann Veneman, Unicef’s Executive Director, said, “We know that lives can be saved when children have access to integrated, community-based health services, backed by a strong referral system” (Child mortality ‘at record low’).

Most of the changes that need to be made to ensure that children receive a better chance at a long and healthy future, are already in existence.  Therefore we must place a greater focus on achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and look to see how we can quickly implement the programs and resources already in existence. That said international investments in global health and development, must increase if we are to make a truly dramatic change in the child morality rates, over the next decade. We must make child health and morality a priority, and we must make it one now!

Please see my earlier post this week on Millions of Children Worldwide Die From Malnutrition, but a Few Dollars a Year Can Save Them!. Additionally please see my other posts on HIV/AIDS, Health and Disease, which include post such as, The End of Polio Nearer as Millions of Children Get Polio Vaccinations and The Health of Zimbabwe’s Children Continuing to Decline, Report Reveals.

September 13 - October 12

During this month as you take extra time for family, inner reflection, and spiritual growth, please also remember the children in need across the globe.
Children’s Activities for Ramadan

The Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) invites youth throughout the U.S. to participate in its first nationwide Essay Contest. The contest is sponsored by the Campaign’s Youth Outreach Committee and will run for the entire month of September. Additional information on the contest is contained in the CRC Essay Contest Guidelines. Essays must be typed directly into the CRC Essay Contest Application and submitted, as an email attachment, to crcessay@yahoo.com by October 1, 2007.

The purpose of the contest is to raise awareness of the Convention on the Rights of the Child among youth, to engage youth in thoughtful reflection on the possible benefits of U.S. Ratification of the CRC, and to provide youth with the opportunity to express and share their thoughts on the CRC and possible benefits of U.S. ratification.

The contest has two categories:
Category 1: Middle school students in grades 6-8
Category 2: High school students in Grades 9-12

Three winners will be selected from each category, and will receive cash prizes of.
First Place: $250
Second Place: $150
Third Place: $100

The top six winners will also receive a Certificate of Achievement signed by the Chair of the Campaign and have copies of their winning essays distributed during the November 16, 2007 CRC Nationwide Briefing Days (see Campaign Events for more details).

Along with the top six winning essays, another 14 essays (seven from each age category) will be selected to be incorporated into a CRC Youth Essay Booklet. This booklet of 20 essays will be available for download from the Campaign’s Web Site.

Applicants are asked to answer one of the following questions:
How could U.S. ratification of the CRC benefit children in the U.S.?
How would U.S. ratification of the CRC impact the global community?

Essays are to be no longer than 500 words and must cite at least three reference sources. For more information, please visit The Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Please see my previous post on Convention on the Rights of the Child and The United States and The Rights of the Child for more information on the convention itself and as to the U.S.’s failure to ratify the convention.

Toddlers vs. Monkey’s, is not my usual topic of choice, and while I am not a scientific type, it’s been in the news. Therefore I thought I would add my 2cents worth, and see what you the readers thought about.

In a recent study, a group of German team anthropologists, compared the action of 106 chimpanzees, 32 orangutans and 105 toddlers, in order to determine which innate abilities are distinctly human. The study was published this past Friday in the Journal of Science, and has some in the media going ape to report the story.

While the test where designed to see who was smarter, tots or monkey’s, it was a close competition of sorts, and in some ways didn’t end with a clear winner, but it appears that in the end the monkey’s won by a small margin.  The study led researchers to conclude that “Human children are not overall more intelligent than other primates, but instead have specialized skills of social cognition,” said lead researcher, Esther Herrmann of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “They learn in a way that chimpanzees don’t learn” (Tots aren’t smarter than apes, just more social).  Dr. Frans de Waal, a primate expert not involved in the study, told the Associated Press, that while the results indicated that apes had high levels of social learning, it was “maybe not as perfect as in humans,” he said, “but it’s very well developed” (Toddlers Are Smarter Than Apes, but Not by Much).

But don’t loose hope on your giggling babies and toddlers, as children did out perform their primate counterparts in social areas.  According to the scientists, “Young human children who had been walking and talking for about one year, but who were still several years away from literacy and formal schooling, performed at basically an equivalent level to chimpanzees on tasks of physical cognition, but far outstripped both chimpanzees and orangutans on tasks of social cognition” (Kids smarter than apes — sometimes, anyway).

This may make you think next time you call the kids your, “little monkeys”! Regardless, I know most parents out there are taking the joy in each step and development of their toddler, as each day seems like a giant step in their little lives. So as monkey’s seem like little competition to parents, the only comparison most will make is if their child is monkey enough to ape it out this Halloween!

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the tragedy of September 11, 2001, take this day to remember the children who perished on that fateful day.

September 11 took the lives of 2,974 people, not including the 19 hijackers, an additional 24 people still remain listed as missing. Of those who lost their lives, 8 where children: 5 on American 77 ranging in age from 3 to 11, 3 on United 175 ages 2, 3, and 4.The youngest victim was a 2 year-old child on Flight 175. In the towers, the youngest victim was 17 years old.

But it was not just the death of 8 children we must remember, as more than 3,051 children lost parents on in the 9-11 tragedy. Today on Oprah, you can hear from some of the child survivors, who’s young lives where forever changed on that early September morning six years ago.

Links:
Children of September 11
Talking to your children about September 11
September 11 Through the Children’s Eye’s

Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn’t commit.
-Eli Khamarov, Lives of the Cognoscenti

Every year at least 6 million children die from malnutrition, or malnutrition related causes every year, but there are low cost alternatives that could curb the number of deaths. The correlation between poverty and malnutrition is obvious to many, yet with solutions in our hands, millions of children still suffer needlessly. Poverty is more than just hungry children, it is the economic instability of whole communities, entire nations, and a cycle that is too often left to continue generation after generation.

“Lack of nutrition not only carries enormous human costs, but high economic costs as well,” said Richard Skolnik, director of international programs for the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau.
(Poor diet factor in child deaths)

For less than $6 a year a child, or adult, could receive iron supplements and nutrition education, which could save, or at the very least prolong, their lives. So why is are these solutions not already being implemented world wide? Jeffery Sachs stated that:

“This is a story about ending poverty in our time. It is not a forecast. I am not predicting what will happen, only explaining what can happen. Currently, more than 8 million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive. Every morning our newspapers could report, “More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty.” How? The poor die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water. They die namelessly, without public comment. Sadly, such stories rarely get written (The End of Poverty).”

In 2005 Jeffrey Sachs published his book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Times, in which he illustrates how we can eradicate poverty in our time. In his book Sachs states we should; Commit to the task, Adopt a plan of action, Raise the voice of the poor, Redeem the U.S. role in the world, Rescue the IMF and the World Bank, Strengthen the U.N., Harness global science, Promote sustainable development, Make a personal commitment.

Most of us, in the west, live in nations that have failed our fellow humans, and an entire generations of children, as governments continue to fall short on promises to end hunger and poverty. The fight against poverty is actually declining, and has done so even more in the wake of September 11, as we focus more on ending terrorism, than the true root of global instability…poverty. The end of poverty is within our reach, and we must work as a collective international community to see that the solutions are put into action, and that poverty is stamped out. Of course just throwing money at the problem is not the solution, we must invest in sustainable solutions, and not just make ending poverty a commitment, but a true global priority in which we work as a collective international community to achive.

Links:
Make Poverty History
Heifer International
World Food Program
UN Millennium Development Goals

Just when you think there isn’t a toy left to be recalled…wham!…you get hit with another and then again another. So when will the recalls end? It seems as if they may not be going away anytime soon, as Mattel announced third Chinese toy recall just this past week. So as the kids head back to school, parents are again turning the house inside-out to find potentially toxic toys. Its not really the homework you expected during the first week of school, especially after coming off a summer of toy induced fear. However until a crack down on toy manufacturing plants in China is made, it looks as if recall may become a regular ordeal for most parents. With millions, somewhere around 19 million, of toys recalled so far, most of which have been in the United States and Europe. Parents are again asking themselves, “who is looking out for our children?”, and the answer seems to be no one. Yes, the toy companies such as Mattel are now actively searching for so-called ‘toxic toys’, but isn’t it all just a little too late?

All of this news and hype over toy recalls makes me long for the good old days when children had less toys and more friends waiting impatiently outside to play games conjured up by their little imaginations. I know I am not alone with my memories of searching for frogs, catching lightning bugs, riding my bike all around the neighborhood looking for other kids willing to go on an imaginary adventure with me, or swimming all day at the pool. Honestly I think my parents had more trouble getting us to come inside then they ever did getting us to put a toy down, as we adamantly refusing to come home more often than not.

Maybe our real problem isn’t China’s lack of controls on their production industry, but our obsession with consumerism and materialism. Don’t get me at all wrong, someone should be keeping a close eye and an iron fist on all toy manufacturer’s, to ensure product safety. However maybe recalls wouldn’t seems so scary if you didn’t have endless piles of toys to dig through as fear begins to take hold of you. Children need a lot less toys then they have, lets face it they don’t even remember what all they have half the time. Yes, I know that many of you have dealt with temper tantrums when sneaking out these ‘toxic toys’, but how quickly they forget. In my day you gladly jumped on your bike, or ran to play with the garden hose over that of any plastic painted toy. In a day and age where obesity in children is of grave concern, lets put the toys away a bit more and encourage our children to get outside and play, join a sports team, ride their bike, and just have some good clean old fashioned fun. So while we are demand better controls on the toy industry and our import standards and regulations, lets also demand more toy free time for our children.

My childhood has little memories of toys, but I do remember camping in our garage all summer, swimming in the lake, ridding my bike all the time, searching for bugs and frogs, playing dress-up, building forts and snow houses. As kids we had countless lemon-aid stands, put on too many ‘preformances’ to count, and who only knows how many games we invented. Children today seem to have stimulation overload, as we have become a society of excess, yet is any of it really better for them? Their are countless memories that come flooding through my mind, and honestly only one of them really has a toy in it, and that was a little toy house my Dad built us and I’m not sure that even counts as a toy. Children will not look back in twenty years and remember their giggling Elmo’s and Thomas trains, but they will remember all the adventures they had outside with their friends.

Please see my earlier posts Are Children Playing Enough?, Toys That Will Make You Sick, and Update to the Toxic Toy Story. As always myself and all of the sites readers are interested to hear your comments on the topic, so please let us know what you think of this topic, and any of the related stories.