I had planned to discuss the poverty issue in Ghana this week but unfortunately I have not heard from my conservation partner yet. Her name is Jes Sudol. She taught in Ghana over the last two years at different times.
After listening to Dr. Grace's video and reviewing the articles, I learned an enormous amount of basic information about poverty statistics within the United States. The Childhood Poverty Research and Policies Centre is an online publication offering information on poverty throughout the world.
Here is some basic information about poverty in Ghana:
"While overall poverty was almost halved in a decade and a half, from 52% in 1991/92 to 28.5% in 2005/06, one-quarter of the population still lives below the poverty line and 18.5% of Ghanaians live in extreme poverty, with inadequate resources even to meet their basic food subsistence needs" (Unicef, 2009).
"Child deprivations are correlated with monetary poverty, residence in rural areas or the more deprived regions (particularly in northern Ghana) and a low level of maternal education." (Unicef, 2009).
"Child poverty remains a global phenomenon. State and non-state actors worldwide must prioritize children to break the cycle of life-long and inter-generational poverty." (odi, 2009).
The Overseas Development Institute focused on research throughout the world. The Childhood Poverty Research and Policies Centre website is a great new resource for worldwide information.
I hope to have an update sometime this weekend to update you all on my colleagues personal experiences over in Ghana.
I have noticed that the trend seems to be that childhood poverty is not the priority in most regions. It has been noted in several articles that this needs to be the starting point for change. It is funny to me how logical it would be to have the children a priority, but we are still fighting for it to be implemented.
ReplyDeleteSamantha, I agree. I seems that common sense would tell you the make children a priority. We, as educators and parents, need to continue pushing for children to become a priority world wide.
ReplyDeleteAlthough you may not have heard from you contact, I enjoyed reading the information you posted about Ghana. As what the other ladies said we have to make children a priority.
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