Voices of the children extracted from an article in the ( RED ) edition of The Independent of 21 September 2006, Independent News.
Harun, 13, Kenya
Harun is at his happiest when he is in a classroom. “When there is no noise and we are busy reading. That is a good day for me,” he said. Secondary education, which Kenyans do not begin until 14, is expensive. Harun’s parents, who live in the slum of Korogocho near Nairobi, cannot afford the 30,000 Kenyan shillings (£240) to send him to school next year. He has eight brothers and sisters. “I just want to learn so I will search for a sponsor. I want to be a pilot. “When I have a job I will live in Hurlingham [Nairobi] where rich people stay.”
Jacky Akongo, 16, Uganda
Jacky is an AIDS orphan with two brothers and three younger sisters and is responsible for all of them; her parents died of Aids. The family, who were displaced by the war in Uganda, live in one room with no electricity. The children sleep in the room, which measures no more than 12 feet by 10. They live off what Jacky earns by giving talks to young people about HIV. She is still in school and would like to go on to study law at university. “If there was no war, we would have enough to eat. It is difficult to study when you are hungry,” she says.
Mohammed, 13, Ethiopia
“I go to school in the morning, at seven, and in the afternoon I go to the agricultural plots and work there,” says Mohammed, who lives with his two sisters, brother, mother and father in the village of Agajin. Most villagers in the Somali region are small farmers. But he doesn’t want to be a farmer. “I’d like to be a teacher,” he says. He hopes to move to Jijiga, 30km away, to continue with his education. He has been at school for three years thanks to Save the Children projects which cater for 3,500 children in his region.
Mohammed, 10, Sudan
Mohammed fled his village in Darfur, west Sudan, seven months ago when Janjaweed Arab militiamen attacked. “They told us to leave,” he says. “I ran away with my mother and sister. I don’t know what happened to my father.” He lives in a child centre run by the International Rescue Committee, where Mohammed and his friends can be allowed to be children. “When I’m not here, I work,” he says. “I rent a donkey… then I go out to collect water, sell it in the camp and split what I earn with the donkey owner. I make 250 Dinars ($1) a day.”
Yusuf Hajji, Kenya
Yusuf Hajji looks to be seven or eight, but he does not know his age. “People have never told me my age so I don’t know,” he said. He is playing with a friend outside a primary school in Korogocho, a slum housing 200,000 people in Nairobi. Kenya introduced free primary education three years ago, but Yusuf has never been. Instead he does odd jobs for his mother or collects water or plays. “We have no money so I can’t go to school,” he says. “If I could choose a birthday present I would choose school. I want to go to school.”
Sherldeen Boucher, 7, South Africa
Like many children her age, Sherldeen Boucher is full of life. She hopes to complete school and become a doctor, but she is not aware of the obstacles that can unravel her dream. She was born HIV positive and drugs constitute her regular diet, thanks to St Barnard’s Hospice in Johannesburg. Her mother died of Aids when she was three months old and she was adopted by her mother’s best friend, who is also HIV positive. Sherldeen does not know her father, who vanished before she was born.
Africa by numbers
- 19,000 children die daily from easily curable diseases
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80% of children under the age of 15 who suffer from HIV are living in Africa
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17% of Africa’s labour force is estimated to be made up of children
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25% of children between the ages of 10 and 14 in Africa are involved in labour
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100,000 children believed to be begging on the streets by the Senegal government
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21% of Kenya’s children are not attending school
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130,000 children estimated to be living on Nairobi’s streets
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200,000 children are orphans in Rwanda
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
