Save The Children In Africa - Orphans of AIDS

You will enter into the lives of African Children
though their stories and pictures.
I hope that your heart will be touched
by the children of Africa as they have touched mine.

The late 50s and 1960s marked a period of great change in most nations of Africa and so it ushered an era of political independence when the mantle of ruler-ship changed hands from white colonialist to blacks and gave way to black governance of black affairs. For most nations of Africa however, the euphoria that greeted the independence was short-lived.

Bad governance in Africa with its attendant consequences of economic woes-mass poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease, corruption in high and low places, ethnic chauvinism, religious bigotry, child abuse, sex trade, the list is endless, has the African child as its greatest victim. Today in Africa, the deprived child, in some cases orphaned, roams the street endlessly in search of what to eat and drink. Education is far from him, health care delivery a mirage, and helplessness and hopelessness written all over his face. At night, belly clothed, this innocent child looks for a place to rest his head. Usually under bridges or ramshackle make shift sheds to the mercy of weather and night marauders. The picture may be gloomier depending on what part of the sub-Saharan Africa the child finds himself. And life goes on around him, resources are appropriated by Governments. Society has left the so-called leader of tomorrow behind disillusioned and rejected. For these ones, this website has been created. To help reach out to man and woman of good will and corporate citizens all over the globe for a hand of assistance, that their lives may have a turn around and actualize their destinies.

Have you ever watched a small child playing and know that the only thing her parents left her was the AIDS virus? Have you ever watched as people beg for the very things that we throw out? Have you ever been moved by the fact that 19000 children die each day in Africa? Have you ever thought 'that's awful! Somebody should do something'? Have you ever realised that someone could be you? Have you ever cared enough to make a difference?

SAVE AFRICA'S CHILDREN
Save the Children - South Africa

We all know that there are many many poor children in Africa, and that HIV/Aids is a major problem for these children and their families. But did you know just how bad life can be for some of these children is?
over 30% of all children under the age of 15 are orphans, mainly AIDS orphans
80% of the people in rural areas live below the poverty line
half a million young children are living on the streets, with no one to look after them.

East and Southern Africa

While we still live, let us join hands, hearts and minds to work together for their solution so that your world will be better than ours and the world of your children even better.

If we are to have faith that mankind will survive and thrive on the face of the earth, we must believe that each succeeding generation will be wiser than its progenitors. We transmit to you, the next generation, the total sum of our knowledge. Yours is the responsibility to use it, add to it, and transmit it to your children.

Save the Children of Africa

Paul Botfield - a man with a vision and a dream to help Africa's children with their education.

Where I used to live there is a school that inn most parts of the world would be condemned, to me it looks like some old chicken stalls, 150 children go there every day to learn, to better themselves. It is a private school costing 35 USD a term, school uniforms and shoes 15 USD, Sportswear around 8 USD and exercise books around 3 USD. There are no text books to speak of, no library except one shelf. The children come from families with little money and most kids do not bring any food to school. Schoolbags, only a handful of children have them, pencils supplies and things of that nature, nearly non-existent.

One day I received an email from Paul Botfield who was on my newsletter mailing list read about Saint Andrews and offered to help by putting together School Packs for children in Africa such as for Saint Andrews. He put his Project Africa 2009 on Facebook and others have joined him in his vision, almost 100 of them...Yes, one person with a dream a vision, joining together with others can make a difference. In the true Harambee spirit of Africa, the pulling together of people for the good of others...Paul Botfield in Australia is making a difference.

Save the Children of Africa: I'M GONNA BE YOUR FRIEND: BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS' DOWNLOAD FOR EAST AFRICA

Save Africa's Children is reaching thousands of orphaned and vulnerable children on the African continent. Journey with us into the lives of the children we serve and the programs we support that transform lives and restore hope.

Over 30,0000 people,
most of them women and children,
have already died
in the east Africa famine.
The United Nations has said that as many as 750,000 people could starve to death
in the coming months.

These people are poorer than poor. Many Americans are struggling right now. Families are clipping coupons, losing their homes, and desperately looking for work. But our country has plenty of food and water for everyone. The people in eastern Africa are barely hanging on to life. They want only a glass of water and a cup of corn.

It costs very little to save a life. The average American thinks 30 percent of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid and wishes only 20 percent went toward helping poverty-stricken areas. Guess how much we really spend? Less than 1 percent. Yes, less than 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget goes toward foreign assistance-it's peanuts. And this money is being spent efficiently and effectively and it's literally saving lives. "Only a couple dollars saves a life," Dr. Biden said. In other words, we're all very misinformed. I know that I was.

Foreign aid makes the world a safer place. . In the ramshackle auditorium-that's about the size of your living room-a huge banner hung reading "Thank you United States." African citizens appreciate foreign assistance and think highly of the United States. As a result our country's highest approval ratings come from Africa. They are our friends. If we stop the aid, extremists groups could get involved instead. The New York Times recently ran a story reporting that Al Qaeda was passing out food and water at Somali refugee camps. We should be the ones passing out the bottles of water.

I fervently believe that, as someone has said before, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." I want to help change the way young people look at school, and hence, the way they look at their futures."
I want to help change the way young people look at school, and hence, the way they look at their futures.

More than 85% of primary school-age children are now receiving a basic education, although the figure drops to 70% in eastern and southern Africa and just 62% in west and central Africa. Between 2002 and 2005, the number of children out of school dropped from 115 million to 93 million, and of those still without a school place 41 million live in sub-Saharan Africa and a further 31.5 million live in south Asia.

Actual attendance rates tend to be lower than enrollment rates. In eastern Africa, for example, fewer than three out of five children attend primary school, and UNICEF says that some of those are pupils of secondary school age who have started their education late or are retaking grades. For countries nearing universal primary education, UNICEF says that reaching the last 10% of children out of school is a "particular challenge".

UNICEF

Growing up anywhere brings its share of problems, but growing up in a place like East Africa is a struggle that is beyond imagination. Put yourself into the shoes of an East African child; I should say feet, (many children do not wear shoes, but might wear sandals, flip-flops as I call them).

You are fortunate to be still alive at the age of six, many of your friends have died of things such as malaria, dysentery,malnutrition, and the like. The fact that both father and mother are alive is another miracle. Life expectancy for men is 40 years in East Africa and 42 years for women (rarely do you encounter gray haired men.) Malaria is still the number one killer in East Africa, but AIDS comes into second place. Wherever one goes, one can see the evidence of the ravages of AIDS. Go into any school and ask how many children have only one parent, or no parent and you would be astounded. In a country like Uganda with apopulation of 20 million, there are as many as 1.5 million AIDS orphans. Yes, there is rebel activity in the north and west of Uganda. Yes, there is malaria and other illnesses. This is the other war, AIDS, the silent killer that sweeps through offices, villages, banks, schools and government institutions. In fact many businesses refuse to give off for more than one funeral a month to their employees, since death comes so frequently to families. (One of the most secure jobs is to make caskets along Entebbe road in Kampala, unfortunately, there is never a shortage of customers.)

So here you are, a child in Africa, living in a small shack, made of sun baked, mud bricks, covered by a corrugated tin roof (they are called iron sheets here), that leaks whenever it rains. The room is small, yes, the house is one room, and if you are really lucky it will be two. No kitchen, you have a stove outside, a charcoal one, charcoal costs about 7 dollars a bag and for some that lasts all month. If you have no money you find some wood and use a fire to cook over. The bathroom, consists of an outhouse down the path, shared by many families, there is a common one used by the men and by all to wash in. Most Africans bathe using plastic wash-tubs twice a day. A house like that rents for 30 to 50 dollars a month in a city like Kampala, and it is in slum areas of town. The income of your parents is only about 70 dollars combined. Father works as a night watchman for a well to do family from 7 in the evening to 7 in the morning. Mother goes off at 6:30 in the morning to work as a maid for some white people from Denmark.

You are a girl of 12, and now you are home alone, well almost. Father might sleep for a few hours, but then he is off into town seeing if he can come up with some extra work and make a few more Shillings for the family. Why are you not in school? Oh, the answer to that one is easy, a girl does not need school, she only needs to take care of the house, get a husband when she is older, have babies, raise a family, cook, maybe work as maid, or in a restaurant, but there is no reason to invest in a woman or so the thinking goes. (Most of the lack of education for girls has to do with economics, the firstborn boy is usually sent to school if any money is available.)

Your oldest brother left at 7 that morning, he had to take a roll of toilet paper to school, since the day before he was scolded for not having any. He also had to take a new broom to class to sweep the classroom and the school grounds after school.

School is expensive. A new law had been passed in 1997 making Ugandan school free through primary grades, but then there are all those other fees, such as PTA, Building Funds, extra this and that. Besides school is six miles away and the mini bus called taxi costs 50 cents each way. There are the hidden costs that no one talks about at school, but are so common. Class size is often about 100 students to the room. Even that is supposed to change but has not. Mother had to come up with extra money so that your brother could pay the teacher to sit up at the front of the class, where he could hear and learn better. Money had also to be paid to have homework checked and corrected, and if you wanted extra help called tutoring for the Primary 7 exam, there was something extra for that. That is why only one of your brothers goes to school, while the others hang around until maybe some of the uncles and aunts in the family can contribute something for the education of them. For that is how it works in Africa, no family can ever come up with the money alone, it takes combined resources of the extended family to send children to school in most cases.

Daily, it is your job, to look after the little ones. Do laundry in two plastic tubs with water that you had to carry in a 5-gallon can up a hill to the house. Not only washing, but there is cooking. You do not have to worry about preparing meat, there is no money for that, except a few times a month. The shop is just around the corner from you. No, you can't ask for a cut of meat, you get what is there and the price is the same. You really do not care about that chewy, tough meat anyway, plus it is covered with flies, yuk.

Live chickens can be bought in the market, but they are expensive, costing between four and five dollars. It is only on special occasions that one will buy them, it is your job to kill and pluck clean if your brothers are not around. The main staple of Uganda is Matoke (green bananas, masked and steamed under banana leaves) and Posho made from corn flour. Every evening you buy a plastic sack of milk, for immediate consumption, since it would spoil if you bought it during the day. It is sold along the roads by vendors with carts, and if you pick one from the bottom of the pile, it is still reasonably cool, well warm. Bread, can also be bought there from the same roadside hawkers who call out what they have for sale, as it gets dark small oil lamps illuminate their wares.

In the mornings it is your job to head to the market to buy stalks of bananas, some sweet potatoes if any money is on hand. There are also red kidney beans, but during the two rainy seasons of the year they may be filled with maggots and you do not like getting your meat and protein that way, but that is reality and what can one do. Rice is available but you have to pick the rocks out of it since it is no fun chewing on them. It is also very expensive. There are potatoes which you like and sometimes use when you buy beef, but it always comes down to how much money the family has.

The future does not look bright for you. You hear people talking about things getting better, but you have not seen it. Malaria still comes to visit you on a regular basis, there is dysentery, cholera that one has to look out for, and as you have gotten older and developed as a young woman has, there is the hidden problem in Africa. Your uncle has been coming around saying things to you, and suggesting that you come to visit him and learn how to be a woman. Yes, things are not getting better for you.

It would be nice to learn how to read and write, but it may never happen, in fact that are not many in the family that do. There are only two ways out of the slum in which you live. One is to get an education and the other way is what your Aunt Asha is doing, selling herself to White and Indian men who have money and just might take you in as a live in girlfriend. That however is not the way you learned in your church, just up the path from your slum called Eden Revival where they spoke of Holiness, right living and faith in God to bring about a future with hope. You have had a lot of hope, prayed a lot, but not seen the bright future, but then God must be busy in other parts of the world.

You like going into town with your mother to Owino market where you see clothes for sale, not that you get many, it has been some time since you last gotten a new skirt, and the detergent had long ago washed out all the brightness that had been there (Omo does get the dirt out, but also the color).

You reach down to scratch your feet, and notice that a few more jiggers have lodged themselves there and it would be time again to cut them out, since there was no money to go the doctor, and mother did a good enough job with a knife.

Fun, for you was playing with other children, going down to the place where the men drank out of common pot the homebrew that some of the women prepared. There you could dance to drums with some the other girls. You liked it and everyone would join in while the old men would talk about yesterday, today and tomorrow, always looking for that miracle to help them out of the slum.

A new lottery had come to Kampala and Uncle Fred had taken all of his salary of 30 dollars, (30,000 shillings) and bet it and won nothing in return. Others laughed about it but you felt sorry for him.

There was something new you had heard about. Some organization from Great Britain had set up a little office at the edge of the slum and was signing up children to go to school without school fees. They also provided school uniforms, books, transport and some food. The cost would be paid for a by a family far away and it was called sponsorship. Maybe, just maybe this was true and someone did care about children like you.

Maybe there was more to life; maybe there would be a chance, an open door to have hope. Maybe, someone did care.

Imagine, growing up in a world where you lack the very basics in life, food, clean water, medicine, shelter, safety, a bed of your own. Beyond that, there are no toys, no dolls, no soccer balls, no sweets and treats, at best, a bed of reeds to sleep on. School would be wonderful to attend, the path out of poverty, but there is no money for school fees, so you stay home and wait for a miracle, but for most there is none, life is simply survival, staying alive.

Death is very common to you (20% of Africa's children do not reach the age of six). Life is hard, and yet, most of the world is unaware of your plight or of any of Africa's children. They are amongst the voiceless of the world, needing others to speak on their behalf. This page and others on this site are my attempt to be voice for the voiceless, Africa's children.

Some of the links:

Helping Orphans in South Africa
Adopting Africa Child
Sponsor Africa Child
Stand for Africa
What can i do to help children of Africa?
Africa - Save the Children
Save the Children

Free Backlinks
Private Krankenversicherung
Billige Kfz Versicherung