Take a good look at your wrist watch. Look carefully at the second hand and let it count to thirty (30). somewhere on the beautiful continent of Africa, a child has just died of Malaria, just to mention one of the many horrendous illnesses and bugs one has to struggle for life with being born on this continent.
Sometimes I wonder how many children with the solution and answers to other health challenges like cancer and HIV/AIDS and bearers of solutions to developmental and diplomatic quagmires have been killed in Africa because they were helplessly born into a hopeless situation. This preventable waste of human potential is unacceptable. Even if you do not agree from a humanitarian perspective, the simple fact that we are holding humanity back in time by doing nothing and watching this diamond talents get extinguished by malaria and other preventable infectious diseases is completely enough to spur you/us into action in directing our energy towards saving the African child and the world in essence.
To paint a picture of the conditions in which most of these children are born, let's start with the bad drainage that mostly surrounds the housing facilities where millions of African children will be born or are being born at the moment. Then another aspect is the cultural practice of the people. One of such practices found among the Fulani herdsmen of northern Nigeria is the practice of abandoning children born with congenital malaria which they call " Pat Boje" in a separate hut for a night. If the child survives the ordeal which it finds itself, it is welcomed and considered a true Fulani child. Despite several enlightenment campaigns in the north of Nigeria, the practice of selecting the "strongest" child resistant to " Pat Boje" just like what happened in Sparta thousands of years ago continues in some regions.
What can you do when you lift your eyes from the dial of your watch and you are jolted back to reality?Its simple, Africa needs volunteers, experts, resource persons in different fields and disciplines that can synergistically contribute their energy towards lifting the African child from this quagmire. We need you. We also need donors to sponsor projects to rural communities to distribute mosquito nets, antimalarials and insecticides. Let's solve as much of the jigsaw puzzle that the world is by starting with the African child.
No comments:
Post a Comment