The Issues of Child Poverty

This post is meant to accompany slide #5 entitled "The Issues of Child Poverty" from my presentation that I gave to the volunteers helping me with my project. The presentation can be found in a post below. I will update this blog with detailed information about the others slides as well.

Poor access to education, food or health-care services has particular implications for women and children. The large disparities in most regions between the numbers of girls and boys who have never attended school are telling evidence of the discrimination that girls and women face. Gender discrimination is widely recognized as a major contributor to children living in poverty: how resources are earned, valued and distributed depend on power relationships between men and women within the household as well as within society.

Each year, tens of millions of children are victims of exploitation, violence and abuse. Some are abducted from their homes and schools and recruited into armed forces. Some are trafficked and forced to work in prostitution and sweatshops, or needlessly deprived of parental care and forced into early marriage, or subjected to violence and abuse in the home, school and community. The effects of these abuses are far-reaching and enduring; they rob children of their childhood, preventing them from fulfilling anything close to their full potential.

Many child protection abuses are linked to deeply entrenched material deprivations, especially through child labour. Material deprivation creates economic needs that can force even the most vulnerable children into hazardous labour, often at the expense of their education and recreation. 

Currently, 180 million children are engaged in the worst forms of child labour.

Material deprivation also makes children more vulnerable to trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. 

An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year; 2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion-dollar commercial sex industry.

Abuse often forces children into material deprivation, or worsens their existing poverty. Violence and abuse at home can force children onto the streets, where they are more likely to become entrenched in poverty. Discrimination can be an obstacle to learning at school and can cause children to drop out. Exploitation generates poverty by keeping children out of school, in poor health and subject to further psychological and physical abuse.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child makes it clear that it is the duty of governments and parents to provide the protective environment required to ensure that all children experience childhood in safety and dignity.

Measuring Child Poverty

This post is meant to accompany slide #4 entitled "Measuring Child Poverty" from my presentation that I gave to the volunteers helping me with my project. The presentation can be found in a post below. I will update this blog with detailed information about the others slides as well.

The many dimensions of poverty are difficult to encompass within a single unit of measurement. The dimensions we discuss are mortality, morbidity, hunger, sickness, illiteracy, homelessness, and powerlessness.

We now look at seven aspects of severe deprivation as they affect children in developing countries: adequate food; safe drinking water; decent sanitation facilities; health; shelter; education; and information.

Over 1 billion children suffer from at least one form of severe deprivation, and 700 million children suffer two or more deprivations. The disadvantages overlap and reinforce one another.

For example, a lack of sanitation pollutes the water that children use and poor nutrition makes them vulnerable to sickness and diarrhea which, if untreated, can further reduce children’s body weight and resistance to disease.

Children who are poorly fed, frequently ill or live in crowded homes with no electricity or access to the media, are likely to encounter more problems in school.

A child severely deprived of shelter, living in an overcrowded home and an impoverished neighborhood may not be able to absorb an education even if there is a school nearby.

Check out a page of a report from UNICEF:
(also found here, page 19)

Defining Child Poverty

This post is meant to accompany slide #3 entitled "Defining Child Poverty" from my presentation that I gave to the volunteers helping me with my project. The presentation can be found in a post below. I will update this blog with detailed information about the others slides as well.

A major part of my project is to inform the community about the purposes behind my project and to educate people about the issues. Teaching you all about child poverty helps bring awareness to the problem and eventually to help find a permanent solution.

This information is taken from UNICEF, which now stands for the United Nations Children’s Fund. Please visit http://www.unicef.org/ for more information.

UNICEF works to ensure the survival, protection and development of children and advocating a high priority for them in the allocation of resources at all times. It continues to give relief and rehabilitation assistance in emergencies.

For children, poverty is experienced as an environment that is damaging to their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual development. It is expanded beyond the traditional definition of child poverty, such as with low household income or low levels of consumption. There are two different types of poverty.

1. Material poverty

For example: starting the day without a nutritious meal or engaging in hazardous labour

 Result: hinders emotional capacity as well as bodily growth.

2. Harmful environment poverty

For example: living in a place that provides little stimulation or emotional support to children 

Result: can remove many of the positive effects of growing up in a materially rich household

By discriminating against their participation in society and inhibiting their potential, poverty is a measure not only of children’s suffering but also of their disempowerment.

All About the Gold Award

This post is meant to accompany slide #2 entitled "The Gold Award" from my presentation that I gave to the volunteers helping me with my project. The presentation can be found in a post below. I will update this blog with detailed information about the others slides as well.

This project is my Gold Award project for Girl Scouts. I have been in Girl Scouts for more than 10 years. The troop I'm currently in has only myself and one other girl left in it. She is one of my good friends and we have been together for quite a while now. As ambassadors in the program, we are the leaders, and we do activities such as assisting and planing events, teaching younger girls, and sharing our information, knowledge, and things that we've learned.

Personally, Girl Scouts has taught me to become a responsible, confident, empowered young woman who can make a difference in my community through positive and effective leadership. I have honestly learned some extremely valuable skills that will help me in the real world, and have been challenged to further develop skills that are some of my weaker ones, such as public speaking and communication with adults about certain issues or topics. I've learned about planning, designing, and implementing my ideas into projects to benefit society. 

The Gold Award is the highest and most prestigious award that Girl Scout Seniors and Ambassadors can earn. Since 1916, the Gold Award has stood for excellence and leadership for girls everywhere. The Gold Award project challenges girls to identify an unmet need or core issue in the community, research and investigate it, recruit volunteers and build a team to create a plan to address the issue/need.

The Gold Award project must have a sustainable impact on my community. The community that I have chosen to focus on is the youth of the world living in poverty, specifically in Haiti. Child poverty is the major issue that I hope to tackle with my project. The aspects of the project are broken down into several stages: brainstorming to come up with an idea, research to find out what area of need to address and if it is feasible, planning out the action I'm going to take to carry out my ideas, implementation of the project, and final review and presentation. 

The plan for my Gold Award project is to help the kids in Haiti. I'm working to make backpacks packed with items that some kids being cared for could really use. I'm collecting hygiene items, clothing, school supplies, and miscellaneous items and small toys. I'm trying to pack a bunch of backpacks to give to all the children when I visit Haiti in March over spring break. 

I will be finishing up my project over the next few weeks and then giving my final presentation at the end of February. I will continue updating this website with my progress, and information about Haiti and child poverty, and what I'm doing to help solve the issues in that community. If you would like to know more about the Gold Award project, please visit http://www.girlscoutsofcolorado.org/gold-award and for more info about the Girl Scouts of Colorado, please visit  http://www.girlscoutsofcolorado.org/home. For more information about my project specifically, please read the other posts on this blog or email me with questions or comments at emilysgoldaward@gmail.com. Thanks for visiting!!