Hunger in Zimbabwe

I know of this family that lived through a natural disaster.  A tornado came through and destroyed many of the homes in the area.  The families had to ramble through their remains, as if it was trash, and gather up what they could find.  Bits and pieces of their lives had been taken away in the blink of an eye.

Luckily, a friend of the family had a vacant home and allowed the family to live there until they got a new home.  The providing of shelter helped the children to feel safe and secure along with the comfort of their mother.  The children were able to adjust partly because they moved to a neighborhood where there were other children to play with.  However, in speaking with one of the children who is now an adult she states that she get very emotional and fearful when there is any sign of bad weather due to having been in a tornado.  She can’t sleep if it’s at night and she keeps her children in the room with her doing bad weather.  She states that she tries to be prepared to take cover should another tornado come through.  This is an emotional fear she believes she will live with for the rest of her life.

I was curious about the food supply in Zimbabwe.  The children in Zimbabwe are fainting in school due to the being hungry.  The situation for children in Zimbabwe is not getting any better, “nearly one out of three are malnourished.”  The children are lacking access to food supply as well health and education.  The children are being faced with stunting and slow educational development due to malnourishment causing many to face infectious diseases such as measles, malaria, and typhoid.

Save the Children is an organization designed to provide relief and development for the children of Zimbabwe.  It has been providing support since 1984. “We serve children and families through humanitarian relief and long-term development.”  Zimbabwe has a population of nearly 5 million people and almost of those people are in need of food.  Save the Children provided food, health care, and child protection services to more than 450,000 people last year in Zimbabwe.  There have been 57 more projects implemented along with the other local organizations to aide in eliminating hunger.  “Save the Children’s relief workers and development programs reached a total of 452,378 people directly, and 385,263 of them were children.”

References

Zimbabwe’s Hunger – Caritas Internationalis.  Retrieved May 28, 2011, from http://www.caritas.org/activities/emergencies/ZimbabweSlowFoodStory.html

Zimbabwe-Save the Children.  (2010, May).  Retrieved May 28, 2011 from http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.7086115/k.D96C/Zimbabwe.htm

Child Development and Public Health

Access to healthy water is meaningful to me in that the human body is estimated to be made up of 60 to 70 percent water.  The body needs water as a survival mechanism.  Water helps in regulating body temperature and to provide the means for nutrients to flow to all your organs.  Water delivers oxygen to your cells, moves waste, and protects your joints and organs.  Water is the body only way to flush bad toxins out of your body and the purer the water is to begin with, the better it works to collect and cleanse harmful toxins from the body.  Healthy water helps children ‘s resistance grow stronger and perform better; providing them the protection they need during those fragile developing years.  Unhealthy water has been linked to increased risk of diseases and learning disorders in later years.

I chose to research access to healthy water supply in Haiti.  Haiti has a water problem and most water sources there are contaminated.  The people there are very poor and most often have no other choice but to drink contaminated water.  Clean water for Haiti is a faith based, volunteer run, non-profit mission.  Their purpose is to provide the people of Haiti with affordable access to clean water in their homes through the use of Biosand water filters.  However, Biosand water filters are inexpensive, simple, and effective.  But the people of Haiti much make a decision based on what is best for their family.  The family must purchase the Biosand filter if they want it.  The receivers pay only a small fee for their filter and the money made is used in helping to make more filters and to help more families have access to clean, healthy water in their homes.

As an impact in my future work, I would love to be a volunteer in helping the people of Haiti to have access to healthy water.  Right now I think it would be possible by making contributions to organizations that would aid in clean water for the people there.  I would also try to convince others to help in contributing, so that the children’s immune and detoxification systems are able to develop better.

Childbirth---In Your Life and Around the World

My personal birthing experience was awesome.  The fact of knowing that I had another human being growing inside of me was wonderful.  I exercise daily and receive prenatal care early on during my pregnancy.  I found out I was pregnant when I was about four weeks.  I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl that was healthy.  She weighed 6lbs and 7 ounces and was 21 inches long.  I experienced natural childbirth because I did not want to take any pain medication during my delivery.

Birthing is a wonderful experience and should be taken very serious.  A mother to be should be aware of any medications taken and should try to maintain a proper diet in order to help ensure that the fetus will develop as it should.  Everything that the mother encounters has an affect on the child’s development rather it’s stress, joy, or medications prescribed or non-prescribed. 

The country that I chose to find out about how births happen there is South Africa: Indigenous and Traditions.  South Africa is a country of many cultures, languages and traditions.  The area, at one time, was populated only by a group of indigenous people: the Khoisan Bushmen.    The !Kung are a particular small group of San nomadic hunter-gatherers who today still strive to live in relative harmony with the eco-system.  The women are respected for their knowledge of being able to find edible plants and the ability to find water, and especially their ability to give birth and nurture their young.  Unlike the women here in the western world where medication is offered for pain relief at the slighted twinge that labour may have begun, a young !Kung woman is actively taught that she must face the pains of natural childbirth with courage and fearlessness.  Most women give birth alone in a squatting position, a few hundred meters from their settlement.  Although mothers giving birth for the first time may have a helper at hand.

Just as in the U.S. it is made known to a mother to be that how she feels and thinks during the pregnancy will affect the labour and birth of the new baby.  A pregnant  !Kung woman is expected to continue her normal duties such as cleaning, gathering food, caring for other children and not complain.  Women in the U.S. also still carry on her daily work duties unless it interferes with the well being of the fetus.  A pregnant woman in South Africa is rarely overweight and an unborn baby is likely to grow to be the right size for the mother to give birth.  Often time women in the U.S. are overweight during their pregnancy.  It appears that San women bite the cord with their teeth and bury the placenta after giving birth, before walking back to the settlement.  It is her duty to return the remaining placenta to mother earth.  They believe it connects the infant to the territory particular groups of Bushmen clan occupy.  The mothers in South Africa share the same tradition as do some mother here in the U.S. for breast-feeding.