The Children of TogoLeslie Banner – Mississauga, ON
Everywhere we looked as we approached a distribution site for Sleeping Children Around the World [SCAW] we saw children. Children of six or seven, always girls, with babies on their backs, to give their hard-working mothers time to complete tasks or look after other children. In the scorching sun of late May with temperatures close to 40° C and humidity causing rivulets of sweat to run down their faces, these young girls cared for their siblings without any thought to their personal comfort. Togo experiences their highest temperatures during the rainy season, expected within weeks of our distribution. The water they hope to “catch” and save in concrete cisterns will be used throughout the rest of the year. As we observed, the cisterns are empty now, wells are few and very far apart, and water is untreated when it is retrieved. Most of the schools we distributed at did not have any access to water on site. Parents and caregivers spoke of the shortage of water in every location we visited.
Children waited long periods of time to receive their bedkits with no access to water. Some of the adults were able to afford small plastic bags of untreated water while they worked along with us in the heat of the day. We saw many young girls walking long distances with “jerry” cans on their heads, heading for water from streams rather than from bored wells. Where a bicycle was available, youngsters, two or three on a bike, carried numerous cans to fill with the precious water. It was abundantly clear that we could learn much about the how to reuse water as we saw mothers doing in Togo. Leaving the country and coming to find work in the city of Lome has increased the number of families existing on meager funds to purchase daily necessities. In one area where we visited homes, water was obtained by lowering a series of ropes with a bucket on the end about seventy feet, and pulling it back up. Young girls were straining to pull up as much water as possible at a time and the twenty or so families in this small area, with many young children, use this access to water. The “well” was uncovered. In the city everything has to be purchased and the one meal a day is all most children can expect.
Attending school is the goal for all children. To complete primary school is one of the goals of the United Nations for all children. The U.N. stated in their Millennium Development Goals that this education should be free. For Togo, as with other African countries, the costs of education cannot be borne by the state alone. The cost of “school fees” as well as providing a uniform, shoes, books, and writing utensils is impossible for many families. A simple slate, part of the bedkit given to 3,000 children, requires a piece if chalk to make it useful. When we enquired if the school gave the students chalk to use, the answer from the teachers was a simple shake of their head as they only have a few small pieces of chalk to use themselves. The schools where we completed the distributions have no funds for a lunch program for the children which would have assured one meal a day for all of the students. Health issues were raised by parents and caregivers when they talked about the needs they had for their children. The treated mosquito net was seen as a “gift of life” by the parents as they understood the benefits of a net. We did not talk to any child or caregiver who already had a net in their home. In talking with our Overseas Volunteer Organization [OVO], it was apparent that they did not have a treated net due to the cost, even though they understood the life saving benefits. Most have experienced malaria well before they reach adulthood and while they hope to save their children from this deadly disease, the cost is great when you have to weigh it against the money needed for one meal a day. For the children who received the bedkits, the smiles on their faces and the faces of their families was a picture that will remain in our hearts. The faces of the children who did not receive the treasured gift from Canada held the hope that next time they would be the fortunate ones. |
