HELPING THE POOR CHILDREN IN GHANA

The Republic of Ghana situated in the sub-region of West Africa accommodates as much as 25,009,153 (December 2013 est) humans out of which 22.8% of individuals fall under the 0-14 years of age category who are also called children otherwise. According to UNICEF almost THREE out of TEN children in Ghana live in poor households and most of these children cannot afford to buy basic human needs. This takes us to the conclusion that it becomes our duty to help the poor children in Ghana. UNICEF lists a number of statistics that will probably tell us as to how far worse the reality is of the poor children in Ghana. They’re as follows:-

1. More children (28.4 %) are living in poverty than the average population (24.2%). This is equivalent to almost three out of every ten children.

2. Of them, one lives in extreme poverty. Overall, that’s 1.27 million children of Ghana.

3. Child poverty remains considerably higher in rural areas (41.8 percent) than in urban areas (13.1 percent).

4. There are more boys (29.9%) living in poverty than girls (26.7%)

5. Almost a third of children from households where the head has had no or only primary/middle school education are poor.

6. One third of children attending public schools are poor (33.4%)

7. Over half of all children in poverty live in households who drink from unsafe water sources. One in two poor children do not have access to any toilet facility.

With these statistics we can only imagine the struggle that an individual has to go through right since his/her birth. It is only by helping the poor children in Ghana can The Republic of Ghana will be able to lead an ordinary life in the coming years. Children form the very bases of a country and a country can only stand shoulder to shoulder with other countries in the world when it has a decent amount of working population, it is pretty obvious that only if children lead an ordinary life can they be strong adults as and when they grow up.

ONE in TEN children in Ghana are said to be suffering from acute poverty i.e. they fail to purchase even the smallest quantities of food which is needed to satiate their hunger. This is not only saddening but also thought provoking, many of us, waste food on a daily basis without thinking much, the smallest of the amounts of food can actually help the poor children in Ghana to satisfy their hunger for a day or two. Although Ghana has managed to do a commendable job of almost cutting down its poverty rate by half, the problem is far from getting solved completely.

More than a third of children in Ghana are forced into child labor to support the needs of their families, no parents would want their child to work at a cocoa plantation, and thus snatching away their beautiful childhood but they can’t help it because they want their ends to meet.

Helping the poor children in Ghana is not just another issue, it is the need of the hour perhaps. Since a good amount of children and their households are poor the parents are also forced to marry off their female child at a very young age so that the child could maybe have a better life at another, possibly better household than theirs. A lot of problems can be traced back to the issue of children being poor. Being poor is not a disease and hence can’t be solved by prescribing medicines, it is a social evil, which will have to die at the hands of us, humans.

Children living in the urban areas of Ghana are only a bit better than the children in the rural areas, this pretty much tells us that poor children are present throughout Ghana and is not limited to a particular region in Ghana. Close to a million children in Ghana have either lost one or both of their parents, thus, forcing the children to fend for themselves at a very early age. Since they can’t start earning their livelihood immediately it is our duty to help the poor children in Ghana and then make them strong and educated enough that they can then carry on with their life as an ordinary individual would.

With poverty comes a lot of other evils like malnutrition, illiteracy, lack of human rights etc. It costs about $20-$30 to feed a child for about 3-4 weeks, people easily spend more money than this on other not so necessary stuff, so it is upon us to gather our thoughts and come to a strong conclusion as to what is necessary at this point in time. The households in which poor children are born are mostly low on the education front and hence are forced to do menial jobs and hence the income is a meager amount as well thus making the children poor by birth. Ghana’s strong economic growth in the past two decades have helped people to rise above the poverty line and lead an ordinary life but poverty is still rampant across Ghana and there are a lot of opportunities for us to help the poor children in Ghana.

Ghana has experienced steadily increasing growth of over 7% per year on average since 2005. Following the attainment of middle income country status in 2010 and discovery of offshore oil reserves, per capita growth in the country has remained relatively high. Despite the growth recorded, inequality has been increasing in the country and poverty remains prevalent in many areas. In Ghana, there are far more poor children than poor adults because poor families in Ghana tend to have a large number of children. Child poverty causes a vicious circle of poverty: a poor child is more likely to grow to become a poor adult because s/he is less likely to be healthy and educated, and his/her children will also suffer, and so on. To conclude, poverty is a social evil that needs to be eradicated on an immediate basis, not only will children be able to lead an ordinary life since birth but they’ll also be able to grow into a strong individual. We, as humans should ponder upon the issue of poverty and should consider spending money on either useless stuff or spend in helping the poor children in Ghana