Children in Poverty

Poverty has taken on a different persona in the rural Midwestern communities I've been a part of.  With vast modern communication networks and social services, it seems that children living in poverty are not necessarily always going without, starving, isolated, and cold, but are instead living without the basic needs of stability, consistency, and proper nutrition.  The children I have known who are poor still have access to entertainment in the form of cable television and hand-held devices.  They have bikes to ride, many, many toys, and new clothing.  One specific example that comes to mind was, in fact, very poor, living with a young, pregnant, single mother, being transported in an unreliable vehicle, and obese.  Not at all hungry.  However, I suspect, he wasn't being nourished well.  I think he was obese due to eating processed, high sugar, high salt foods, and without a proper meal routine. The culture of poverty that existed in his community and family placed some material things above other necessities, including healthy food and dental care.  His mother always had a working cell phone.  But he had experienced terrible baby-bottle mouth as a toddler and his front teeth had decayed away.  I remember a span of time during which he and his mother lived in the woman's shelter because her water had been turned off.  I provided transportation to her child during those weeks, assisting him in attending a community summer camp, and can remember pulling up to the shelter to pick him up and seeing his mother on that cell phone. 

This contrasts with children living in poverty without social services and modern communication networks as a backdrop.  Children in sub-Saharan Africa are without the very basic needs: clean water, food, shelter, medicine.  Diarrhea, malaria, and AIDS kill children every day.  Children are orphaned by these same diseases.  Mental health issues accompany this level of poverty on a debilitating scale.  Children who lack access to these basics grow up without the opportunity to attend school.  Children are often forced to support their siblings and labor for food.  Those who are fortunate to attend school typically drop out at a young age to help support a family.  In the case of girls, they may leave school when they begin menstruating because of the lack of personal hygiene supplies, or may be married or pregnant at a very young age as a symptom of a poverty- stricken culture.

Thankfully, there is global concern and efforts in place to attempt to raise children in these settings out of poverty.  As a mother of three healthy daughters with lives full of opportunity, I feel that it is necessary to assist impoverished communities in some way, big or small.  Over the years we have made an effort to share what we have with children living in poverty.  We sponsored a child in Nepal for several years.  Recently, when my daughter turned 11, we held a fundraiser in lieu of a typical birthday party.  Instead of gifts, she asked for monetary donations.  She raised over $400 for the Because I Am A Girl campaign.  That money will help purchase school supplies and feminine hygiene products for girls who would otherwise not have these basic necessities and would, therefor, not have the opportunity to attend school.  Because I Am A Girl also gives us the option to purchase goats, chickens, or cows for the girls to raise for food and money.

Programs such as this have not solved the problem.  However, participating in global campaigns such as Save the Children or Because I Am A Girl may provide some means of resource to children who are living in extreme poverty, and hopefully minimize the effects.