i just wanted to show you a piece of reality that hits us each day as we work out in the community of grabouw.
the picture shows a young girl (about 13 year old) washing her clothes at one of the only two standpipes in the iraq squatter camp in grabouw, this is a pitiful shot when we consider that over 500 people, who's homes are little more than tin shacks with no electricity and only these two taps, live not more than 1/2 mile away from where i am sitting typing this post in my home on the village of hope project...i have just counted up that we have 10 taps in the home i share with maz (and arron)......
first world meets third world and who really cares!
have just done a study of 'basic human needs' that everyone should have a 'right' to in civilised society - see how many you think these people in 'iraq' have access to (perhaps rate from 0 -10 the quality of such provision):
ReplyDeletenutritional food and clean water
protective housing
a non-hazardous work environment
a non-hazardous physical environment
appropriate health care
security in healthcare
significant primary relationships
physical security
economic security
appropriate education
safe birth control and childbearing.
(source Doyal and Gough 1991)
number 6 should have read 'security in childhood'
ReplyDeletetref i will reply via email too but to take items 1 to 10 i would rate it as follows.
ReplyDelete1. dependant on whether the family had someone working, but even then the pay would not allow them to purchase nutritional food so i would give this a 2 max, maybe even 1!
2. the housing is basic timber (old pine branches cut from the local forest) structure with either broken apple pallets, tin sheets, whatever they can lay their hands on, one or two room structure where maybe 6-8 people live, single parafin stove...lets give this a 1 as well shall we!
3. hard to say, think standards have been raised by local farmers and other employers but working on local apple farms and packing factories always give hazards....give this a 4.
4. open sewers, no toilets, no electric.....no footpaths, roads, street lighting, etc....another 1 for this score.
5. 34% HIV rate, one of the highest new TB infection rates in the world, one of the highest fetal alcohol syndrome rates in the world, 50,000 people, one day hospital, no over night care facility other than the 7 beds that thembacare provide...lets give this a 2 shall we!
6. not sure what this means.....pls confirm
7. well many of the families are single parent, many children care for this siblings, because of death from AIDS/TB etc....3?
8. not a great area to live, rape is high, drug abuse high, child neglect high, rate this one as a 3.
9. 2 or 3, say no more!
10. there are local schools where these children go, and they love school, however how good the education is and we are taking of schooling, i'm not sure, but we are working with and talking about a very uneducated adult population so education with regards to healthcare, security, humanrights, birth control, HIV and AIDS infections is poor, so with this in mind i would score 6 for access to schooling and maybe 3 or 4 with appropriate education based on the parents!
11. ha ha......2
hope this helps! tim