Juvenile Poverty: Not Child's Play

In 2003, an estimated 10.6 million children died before reaching the age of 5. That is equivalent to the total population of children in France, Germany, Greece and Italy. This was all a result of the extreme level of poverty they are faced with. Why do we let this happen?

Child poverty is a big problem in our world as it kills many innocent, young people. By definition, poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (dictionary.com) The issue is right in the definition itself: there are little children with no support from others, they are starving, have no shelter or any health care. This is all happening in our world and it is not talked about as much as it should be.

We are always taught in school to treat others the way we want to be treated but we are not always reminded to implement this in our everyday lives. We tend to forget that not everybody gets access to the basic human rights, like many fortunate people in Canada. In Canada, we have human rights and all of our basic human needs made available to survive in our daily life and we forget about the children that are not fortunate enough to have what we have. We have food, water, shelter, healthcare, education and live in a country that provides a lot of opportunities for us.

Many kids in undeveloped countries in Africa, such as, Kenya, do not receive the resources to live a normal human life. We are always complaining that we are ‘starving’ or have nothing to eat in the fridge but we never realize that in places, like Kenya, 6.3 million kids have died in just 2013 due to hunger (and this number has only risen since then).). We do not think of how every 5 seconds a child dies of hunger, every five minutes 19 children under the age of 5 die of pneumonia and we certainly do not think of the 500,000+ mothers that die due to inadequate and substandard health care during childbirth. Not many people care to change this problem as it does not directly affect them, but we need to remind ourselves how we would feel if this was happening to us or perhaps a younger sibling, someone that is close to our hearts.

Now, I know there can not be much done by a 17 year old student to end child poverty in the world, but there are many things we can do to try and make a small difference. There are many ways young people can get involved and help. There are many things you can do without any money. For example, you can start a petition or sign a petition, donate money or spread awareness throughout your school community or even start your own organization to help. I am a part of the Free The Children club at my school for which I continue to organize fundraisers and different activities to not only raise awareness for the cause but also to collect money through the different fundraisers we do as a club and then later send to the organization. I was also given the opportunity earlier this year to go out to WeDay. A day where people with with the same passion and interest in creating positive social change come together and listen to many advocates speak about social justice issues, particularly that of child poverty.

By doing these little acts, we can make a small change in someone's life. Help be the voice for young, innocent children. To learn more about the WE Movement, check out their website, https://www.we.org .By educating ourselves and learning about how we can help, we will be able to come together and work as a community to make a positive change in our world and fix many social injustices.

#luka #socialjustice #childpoverty