Childhood poverty in India

Since I still have not heard back from those international professionals I attempted to contact, I selected to learn about childhood poverty in India from http://www.childhoodpoverty.org.   Here are some of the insights that I learned about India.

In India, drought and environmental deterioration have significantly undermined livelihoods and exacerbated poverty.   Responses to these contribute to poverty cycles that include pressures on children to work, undermining their education and health.   Children from 10-15 percent of households migrate for work, usually with parents, but sometimes alone.   Income from migrant children's work constituted up to 45 percent of the poorest households' income.  India accounts for 20 percent of the world's out-of-school children.  It has the largest numbers of working children in the world, with nearly a third of children below 16 years working.

The focus in India is to get the children from poor families into primary schools, increase the retention rate so that more children finish primary grades, and upgrade the quality of the schooling they receive.  In health, the country is facing high rates of communicable diseases, malnutrition, and maternal and perinatal illnesses, predominantly among poor people.  Almost half of all children under the age of five are malnourished and 34 percent of new-borns are significantly underweight.

Gender biases limit girls' life chances.  The cycle of disadvantage starts at birth and continues through childhood to motherhood and the next generation.  It is reflected in the inferior health and educational status of women, the high maternal mortality rate, the neglect of the girl child, the declining sex ratio, and girl's lower rates of school enrolment and subsequent higher participation in the child labor force.

These insights have shown me that poverty around the world looks very different.  In the United States, we have laws limiting child workers, requiring school attendance, and protecting gender equality.

THE GLOBAL FUND FOR CHILDREN

The Global Fund for Children (https://www.globalfundforchildren.org) works to transform the lives of children on the edges of society—trafficked children, refugees, child laborers—and help them regain their rights and pursue their dreams.  Since 1997, they’ve reached 8 million children worldwide.

They find and invest in grassroots organizations that enable the most vulnerable children in their communities to thrive.   Their model can be summarized in three steps: scout (seeking out organizations that serve the most marginalized children in the world), support (they invest in undercapitalized organizations that provide critical services to vulnerable children), and strengthen (through management assistance, capacity building, and networking opportunities to help them become sustainable resources in their communities).

In a recent blog “Voices from Hay al-Gharbeh” By Emmanuel Otoo on December 26th, 2012, the author discusses poverty in Lebanon.  It is estimated that 8 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty while an additional 28 percent are considered below the poverty line.  There are also huge disparities in poverty demographics, with a heavy concentration of poverty in certain regions and increased poverty in urban areas, especially around large cities like Beirut.

Tahaddi, a GFC partner, works to address these challenges by providing children and women in Hay al-Gharbeh, a shantytown in Beirut, with access to quality education, psychosocial support, and basic health services. The children are given the opportunity to learn and play in a safe environment and are guided and socialized to become productive and responsible adults.

The author visited and spent time with over 100 vulnerable boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 16 who are receiving various forms of support from Tahaddi. The children quizzed him about the United States and taught him key words in Arabic.  They shared their dreams and aspirations with the author and shared that they are receiving the needed guidance from Tahaddi to enable them to achieve their dreams.  One 9-year-old girl said that when she grows up, she wants to help children who are sick to be well and those who are hungry to have food. When asked why, she said, “Sickness and hunger make children unhappy, and so I want to do that to make sure children are happy all the time.”

Tahaddi’s strategy centers on providing support to vulnerable children and youth affected by conflict and poverty, including those with disabilities. The organization currently serves over 110 beneficiaries. Tahaddi provides community sensitization on the rights of children, supports families in obtaining the legal documentation necessary to access basic amenities, and operates social inclusion, mentorship, youth empowerment, and enterprise and livelihood programs.

GFC selects grantee partners such as Tahaddi based on their demonstrated potential to actively engage their communities and find sustainable solutions to the issues facing vulnerable children and youth. They serve as a resource for these grassroots organizations and, through their financial investment and other services, help to strengthen the capacity of their partners to enable them to continue addressing emerging issues long after their support ends.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

To locate and establish contact with early childhood professionals outside the United States, I visited the UNICEF website and contacted local representatives in New Zealand and Bolivia.  I have always been interested in New Zealand and Australia and decided on Bolivia because one of my current students was born in Bolivia (her mother is a native) and they still have many family members there.  I thought this relationship could provide me with additional resources/information on the region.  I have not heard back from either e-mail yet and may have to contact others if I don't hear back soon.

Because of my ancestry, I was interested to see what the European Early Childhood Education Research Association website had to offer.  While the website contains lots of research papers, it doesn't really discuss current issues or much as far as "hands-on" work.  I next checked out the Center for Child Care Workforce website.  This is a very interesting website for professionals in the early childhood field.  They discuss such topics as wage issues, professional development, and ways to make early childhood professionals voices heard.  This still wasn't exactly what I was looking for, so I checked out The Global Fund for Children's website for an international look at early childhood.  When explaining what they do, they said, "we transform the lives of children on the edges of society—trafficked children, refugees, child laborers—and help them regain their rights and pursue their dreams.  In other words, we do all we can to let kids be kids—no matter what their circumstances."  This was something that definately interested me and I can't wait to dig further into their work!