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
Allison,
ReplyDeleteI love that you talked about Zimbabwe. This was a special interest to me as in college I wrote my thesis on Hunger in Zimbabwe. I appreciate your advrtisement of feed the children, it's important that people understand that "feed the children" does many other things. Such as child protection, as well as health care for the children and their families. It's imperative that people understand how far their donations can go in these countries.. I love that they share many photos and stories on their website and all over their service areas. Thank you so much for sharing! Good to see you again Allison! :)