Check out this slide I created of the Unakho Children's Home, it's really cool! I will be presenting it tomorrow in class with the 'Brandon Heath Give Me Your Eyes lyrics' as background music for the topic 'Advocate for the Rights and Needs of Children and Young People - My Early Childhood Passion Is...' Can you guess? Yes, that's right! South Africa's many orphans. Did you know South Africa has the highest HIV rate in the world?
Please put this music from YouTube on as I have not yet figured out how I can embed the music in the slide. Please also read the story or article below and give me feedback whether it is clear enough or brings across the point I want (as I am hoping to use it for the October fundraiser if it is good enough), thanks! If you have any editing suggestions please paste it into word insert the suggestions in bold or highlight and email it to me, thanks heaps!
P.S. You might be interested to know that the word Unakho means 'God can' .
My Early Childhood Passion is:
Doing Ubunto (see definition below introduction) by Raising Awareness for the Many Orphaned or Abandoned Children Effected Either Directly or Indirectly by HIV in South Africa.
More commonly mentioned is the fourth stage of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) infection being AIDS (that is Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Not only is Aids a killer, but unknown to many people a person can die from various common illnesses if they have HIV because their immune system does not work properly. Having the highest recorderd rate of HIV infection per population, South Africa is the number one country concerning this issue.
But…
“What is ubuntu?”
“The Zulu word "ubuntu" translates roughly as "humanity towards others". But it means much more than this. The spiritual foundation of African societies, ubuntu involves a belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all of humanity, a unifying worldview best captured by the Zulu maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu - "a person is a person through other persons". ”
Read more: http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/#ixzz1U2S24DdD
“Hang on how, on earth does this affect the early childhood environment?” you say.
My response is very easy; just close your eyes and listen to this very real story. Although made up, it is modelled after the reality of thousands of children in South Africa. I’ve first decided to tell you a story to help you understand how this relates to the early childhood environment in South Africa instead of blasting out the many statistics right at the beginning as it is just as easy for you to read or look up the statistics at a later time.
So here goes… but don’t forget to close your eyes or look at the wall and…
“Imagine that a few years ago you were a child living in 2009 and both your parents were one of the estimated 310,000 people in South Africa that died to infections related to HIV (not including those alive with HIV related infections). I say ‘related’, because due to HIV being a virus that affects the immune system, a person can more easily die from things such as the flue or pneumonia but the underlying cause still being that the person was not able to recover because his or her immune system was not strong enough.
Now imagine that your parent’s died within 6 months of each other. You then had to move off the land where your home was, without you or any of your relatives receiving any of the benefits from the sale of the land because your parents did not realise that they needed to write details like this in their will or maybe they didn’t even know what a will was. You had Gogo (the word you use for Grandmother) who took you in. Since Gogo had so many other ‘children’ (grandchildren) that she was looking after who were orphaned too, you are grateful for her taking you in, but it makes you feel a bit bad.”
“Why?” you simply ask blinking out of the story. “Well, now let me explain, just remember this is potentially ‘for real’ story…”
“…Since you came to live at your Gogo’s place, she has had to share the already bare minimum out with you as well rather than buying more to feed the family. Despite Gogo’s cheerful attitude, you can’t help but feel like you should blame yourself, at least a little bit, for the fact that meals are slightly smaller than they were before. So when a man who is a stranger to you, but has had contact with your Gogo, offers to take you to the children’s home that he works at, your Gogo is grateful for the help. Although she finds it hard to part with you Gogo knows all too well it will be for your best. You not only will be provided with adequate food, nutrition and clothing but you will be given a workbook or two, pencils and school supplies to take with to school and use for your homework. Although this might seem like basic necessities, to you it is the most wonderful gift ever.
After two house ‘parents’ from the children’s home come to pick you up and spend most of the day visiting, talking and getting to know you; your Grandmother, or ‘Gogo’ as you call her, breaks down in tears when they eventually start walking out the door. It is just too much for your beloved Gogo to hold back the feelings inside of her. Hugging and kissing you, her precious grandchild of seven years, she reminds you and the house ‘parents’ from the children’s home to visit as often as time will allow. Gogo reminds you for the tenth time to work hard at your homework while, for your sake, she makes vain attempts to hold back the both sad and happy tears mingling down her chocolate brown cheeks. Your loving Gogo is both sad to part with you and overjoyed that at least one of her precious grandchildren will have, not only what she considers necessities that she is able to provide, but also what she considers ‘bonuses’ or ‘extra necessities’ that many other people in the world would consider everyday necessities. To your Gogo necessities are things like two meals a day and what she considers bonuses or in other words things that she scrapes, scrimps and saves in order to at least provide a little of these luxuries for her many ‘children’ or grandchildren are items such as more than one pair of clothes (which means a warm winter), pencils, a workbook or two and other homework supplies, and of course clean water and three meals a day including a protein meal for every day of the week. So now; hear you are in 2011 a healthy child of nine years old and you have been at the children’s home for two years. You also sometimes wonder how your family is doing and what it would be like to live with them, but you know that Gogo is too poor to look after you sufficiently and so even though you would like to see her more often you are happy with what you have got.
Then one day your house ‘parents’ have an idea. Why not invite Gogo as a house ‘mother’ to help them look after the other children and in return Gogo’s many ‘children’ or grandchildren may live with her, only this time they will be provided with the same benefits the other orphans at the children’s homes have. You are extremely excited over this idea and happily agree to go with your house ‘parents’ to visit Gogo as they discuss this matter over with her. In two months you have to still pinch yourself to check whether all these things are real; living with your Gogo and seeing your cousins every day, knowing that they have enough to eat daily, clean water and yes even enough paper and pencils to do homework!
Further details…
Heavily mentioned in this article is the amount of orphans due to HIV related issues but it is worth remembering and noting that not all children orphaned for this reason have contracted HIV themselves and many, many more children in South Africa are orphaned for other reasons such as loss of employment, poverty, limited employment opportunities for the uneducated, limited employment opportunities for mothers who were not educated past primary school, Zimbabwe refugee issues such as job shortage amongst South Africans due to Xenophobia (which means fear of other races or tribes) and the fact that Zimbabweans work harder than the majority of South Africans, abandonment (not always due to rejection of the child but sometimes also due to poverty as many mothers think that ‘it is better that the child is cared for adequately’).
Besides the orphans in the country who are orphaned or abandoned due to issues such as poverty that are unrelated to HIV, unbelievable scores of children are left destitute due to either both their parents dying or their mother dying and their father is unable to provide for his children. This is because in many families in South Africa it is part of the long upheld traditional culture for the men to have various wives or partners without the often rejected practice of using condoms which are often thought of as part of the practice of the ‘white man’s medicine’ or ‘white man’s ways’. ‘How could a poor man, like me, be expected to provide financially for all my offspring if I have had so many partners?’ is how many men must think.
Despite raising awareness through knowledge for the plight of these children (especially for providing financially for those who are in children’s homes) being my passion, I never cease to be completely bowled over at the statistics every time I look up the numbers. Although I have only had a brief time to introduce you to this topic, I hope that you will be interested enough to read the hand-out later in your own time that I have provided for you.
Also please put your name down if you are interested in coming to my fundraising birthday party in October (it will be on a weekend so won’t clash with our practical work). All are welcome to come! Also just to let you know no one is obliged to donate any money as the idea is just that no one will give me birthday presents but rather only if they want to they may donate to Unakho children’s home in South Africa. Although not all children at Unakho were orphaned due to HIV related issues, Unakho has many children who were and some of them have also contracted HIV from their mothers.
Please also let me know if you would like a disk with photographs, video clips and more information regarding both Unakho children’s home and South African orphans.
For more information go to references used:
Definition of HIV
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=3769
Clean water - a basic human right
http://www.southafrica.info/about/social/watergovt.htm
What is ubuntu?
http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/
HIV and AIDS in South Africa
http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm
The Different Stages of HIV Infection
http://www.avert.org/stages-hiv-aids.htm
