Some Solutions

I think one of the most important questions is, What can the typical person do to help these children? Well everyone knows that they need money to build proper orphanages and buy food and clothes for the kids, but people are weary about donating money because they don't know if it will arrive at it's destination, or that it will be used in the right way. There are some really good organizations that volunteer their time to Sponser event just for the purpose of helping orphans. The Santa Cruz cares organization is selling gift cards with artwork done by children in the Tsakelani center. They have also had dances/ dinners, sold hot chocolate, had a shopping day and tons of other events to raise money. There are lots of things to get involved in either with volunteering your time, or donating money for the cause.

Where do they all go?

One of my main questions was with over 45 million orphans in Africa, where do they all go? Many of the children end up being cared for by the grandparents, particularly grandma. It's a hard life for all of them when the grandma can't work and has to support all her grand kids. Many of them cant afford to go to school because they have to get a job at a very young age just to buy food and clothing. Here are some peoples stories of their struggles. http://gbgm-umc.org/health/aidsafrica/nheweyembwachildtrust.cfm Trust, 14, lost both parents in 1999 from AIDS, and he tries to earn a living by making and repairing watches. He and his three siblings live with an elderly grandmother. "We have to do everything on our own," he says. "Each one of us looks for food and money to pay our fees to go to school." A sixteen year old girl named Naomi was asked to provide a glimpse of what her life is like, she becomes somber and tries to choke back her emotions. "My life is very hard to describe because my parents passed away, and the most difficult part is that my mother died before I had time to get to know her." Naomi lived with her father but grew up under the guidance of aunts. When her father died, she and a younger brother were on their own. She and her brother do what they can to seek out a daily living. Sometimes they have little or no food. "But," she says, "through God's grace and people's mercy, we survive." Another girl describes having to fight off a father who "drinks heavily and when he is drinking, he comes into my room, wakes me up and wants to get in the same bed with me." Her mother died last December, and "my father does not provide." She stopped attending school in the seventh grade to help care for herself and her sister's 2-year-old son. United Methodist News Service is withholding her name. Then there are the orphanages that hold 25% of the children but they are poor and don't have good conditions for the children. The UN mission in Liberia found that there was harsh and unsanitary conditions in many orphanages lacking basic requirements for the protection of the childrens emotional and physical well being and some are operating illegally. They are trafficking the children and charging outrageous prices to adopt them. $ $ $

A continent of Orphans

Africa : the problem

Africa is the worlds second largest and second most populated continent, yet it is underdeveloped and some what ignored by the rest of the world. They provide fine countries, (like the U.S.) with diamonds, gold, copper, and col tan while their people are starving and dying from war and disease. Africa has many problems within it, but I think one of the major and most important issues is their ever growing number of orphaned children. Without parents or guardians to help them, how can they be expected to become educated, caring adults who can try to make their home a better place. Their minds are corrupted from an early age to becoming soldiers or slaves and they just don't know any better or have any other choice. There is currently 45 million orphans just south of the Sahara desert. So why are there so many orphans and how come they don't all get taken care of? The biggest reason is that parents are dying from diseases, particularly from aids. This website tells many peoples personal struggles with being HIV positive and how many of them were pregnant when they found out. http://www.avert.org/africanstories.htm. 80% of all children orphaned by aids live in Africa. Some of the reasons why Aids is still spreading so rapidly in Africa is because even if the people are being educated about the problem it doesn't mean they are going to change their behavior. The cultural block is that many men practice dominance over women, not giving them any choice, and many men still believe in polygamy( having multiple sex partners during marriage). So the disease keeps on spreading because the reluctance to change. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2872/is_/ai_98009196 The other causes of people dying, including parents, are starvation and malnourishment, Malaria, and the civil war that still continues today. Different ethnic groups are at war because Africa is dependent on their natural resources and it goes through economic decline which are prime conditions for civil war. Malawi is facing its worst food crisis in 50 years. The hunger and malnutrition inflicting some 20 million Africans is the result of severe droughts that dried crops and floods that destroyed much of what survived in countries already struggling with the economy.In the last decade, malaria has been increasing at an alarming rate, especially in Africa. it ranks third among major infectious disease threats in Africa after pneumococcal acute respiratory infections . So this is the problem, What is the solution?