A father of the fatherless, and protector of widows,
is God in His holy habitation. Ps 68:5
HOW MANY MORE CHILDREN HAVE TO DIE?
These are words of a female heading a household in our community. These words seem to have expressed the feeling of the 80 percent of the people who are economically challenged living in our community.
King World Missions shares the same sentiments. There is generally no health equality in Zambia. We believe that there is no country in the world that can develop without an educated and healthy population. Even if people use institutional health facilities, in this case our clinics here, people are just given prescriptions for drugs that they are required to buy from the drug stores.
In such cases, either the drugs were purchased from the shops with the risk of buying expired drugs or obtained free from friends and relatives. We have observed that many households also resorted to traditional medicines that could only have a curative effect on the patient overlooking the side effect.
Generally, about 80 percent of the population live below poverty line, a development which has continued to cause untold misery to Zambians. Current trends also show that there will be a continued rise in the cost of the food basket. King World Missions is determined to fight this dragon of poverty
In conclusion, we discovered that the chronic poverty of many households in our community seems to have greatly eroded their confidence in the people they vote to represent them.
”Government may come and Government may go but we go on for ever in the same plight” seem to be the people's theme song.
“The government has decided to neglect us to die from hunger and diseases. I have children who qualified to Secondary School, but due to lack of financial support they are now roaming the streets of Mutendere. I have a daughter who is quite sick but we have no money to buy the prescribed medicine”
"I grew up with AIDS. Both my parents died of AIDS. It's my turn to die of AIDS. Until then at least I want to eat every day, to play if I can. My legs ache and my stomach feels upside down. So I can not play. But even if I want to play they think I am too weak, or too sick and no one plays with me. Sometimes I think I should die because there is no one to care for me. Then I get scared.. so scared".
Zambian children for years now have lived with the knowledge that their ailing parents will eventually succumb to the disease. Girls were the most effected because they have to drop out of school to take care of the young siblings. We have many cases like that. As a
mother my heart bleeds to such cases.
The children in Zambia suffer the social, psychological, and economical impact of AIDS long before the actual deaths of their parents. As mother and called to bring love and faith in families, I find myself incapacitated to these challenges.
At the height of HIV/AIDS pandemic, mostly in developing countries and Southern Africa in particular, there have been numerous Non Governmental Organisations including King World Missions, that have been formed to combat the devastating effects this pandemic has unleashed to humanity.
This epidemic has been triggered by a number of social upheavals with poverty outstanding among others. In Zambia, poverty is the major threat to the stability of several million Zambian households as of now.
The growing number of impoverished households in our community and the incidences of orphanhood due to deaths of parents from diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Malaria, have been generating a number of destitute children. These children are dependent on other households to take care of them. King World Missions' support comes with the view of establishing a firm and a self-perpetuating system of income.
You can help to restore dignity to people living with AIDS, provide increased care for these children.
Street girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse from street boys and adult men. One of them (16 years old) said in sheer apathy,
“ I know I will die before I am 20. So what if it is because of AIDS? The only time I feel affection is when I have sex. I feel comforted. If I get AIDS, I get it. What is it to any one? They don't care anyway. I am in trouble, but just leave me alone, unless you really care for me and want to rescue me”
We are very proud as Zambians because we have not and pray that we will never put our children through the catastrophic impact of war. However, HIV/AIDS and poverty have had a devastating effect on the structure and mechanisms that ensure a child's physical security, mental development and over all health. And that is not to mention Malaria. In Zambia, rape, defilement, physical abuse and neglect are still rife.
If the current trend continues almost every family in Zambia will soon have been affected in some way by HIV/AIDS. Already millions of people are suffering as a result. They, their families and friends and even their whole community are struggling with different emotions and fears, the sense of hopelessness, loss, financial crisis and fear of abandonment when sick and dying.
