Children of the Swamp

Pic: No caption needed here...

I’ve always been a big believer in the importance of a quality education. Children who receive a quality education have so many more options and opportunities in life. I’ve had to amend that belief slightly after my first couple weeks in Africa: more important than a quality education is just having some sort education at all. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for far too many children in today’s developing countries. Uganda has less than 50% of children (worse than I had originally guessed) graduate from primary school (about the same as getting through 6th grade in the States). In fact, 16% of Ugandan children never enroll in any schooling. And, the scary thought is that Uganda is well ahead of some of its other African counterparts. Depressing to think about, isn’t it! If a country is going to develop, it needs educated citizens to fuel that development.

So why are so many African children not receiving an education? There are many reasons, including children having to skip school because of sickness (malaria is one of the biggest culprits), work (subsistence farmers are often dependent on children for labor), or not being able to afford it (all Ugandan children have the right to receive an education, but it is not free). If students miss too much school, they can’t pass tests, and they fail out. Teachers are overloaded as it is, so they don’t have time to help students catch up.

I had heard of all of these reasons before, but one reason caught me off guard: some children have to miss school because they are spending their days sitting in lowland swamps! I was astonished to find out that children sit under makeshift shelters that are built in the middle of rice fields placed in the swamps with the sole purpose of chasing away birds that come to steal the rice seeds. I had noticed the ramshackle shelters in the swamps before, but never thought much of them. A development worker explained that some of the poorest families in Uganda receive rice handouts from the government. This rice is what helps these families survive, but it’s not enough to allow them to get out of the grasp of poverty. So, the children of some of the poorest families in Uganda are stuck in a cycle where they have to skip school in order to protect the food that allows for their survival, but in skipping school they destroy most opportunities that would allow them to break out of poverty. So how do we solve it? One approach that I have been able to witness working is the route that VEDCO & SRL have taken: empower farmers through sustainable agriculture. Change is possible and is slowly happening, but there is still a long way to go. More help & resources are needed to really raise African from the grips of poverty.