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In Meru especially the places I know well, Nkando, Naari, Nkuriga, Munanda,
Kithima, Mutunyi, Nkando, Kiirua and others. many children don’t attend
school due to lack of basic needs, school fees, food, medical care, didactic
materials etc.
Life here is generally difficult. Illiteracy, ignorance, diseases, drought
and famine, lack of employment opportunities and unavailability of adequate
development funds, are some of the factors that compete to make this region
poor and dreaded place to live and work in.
Besides being poor, people have limited access to basic human needs such as
food, clean drinking water, health care services, housing, education and
security.
Due to numerous problems and lack of awareness many peoples are infected
with HIV*/*Aids. As a result there are many widows and orphans are
countless.
Many children don’t go to school due to luck of food, scholastic materials,
and basic needs and others are at home taking care of their sickly parents.
You may not hold tears when you see the suffering of these children. In some
instances when the two parents die or are very sick, the elder child is the
one who takes over the responsibilities. Many have been traumatized because
of being exposed to scores of problems since birth.
Generally we found that women and adolescent girls are more vulnerable to
HIV infection because of the biological nature of the process and the
vulnerability of the reproductive tract tissues to the virus, especially in
adolescent girls. For example, young women are generally disadvantaged by
gender disparities. In terms of food intake, access to health care and
growth patterns, girls are often worse off than boys. The inequalities
become evident soon after birth, and by adolescence many girls are grossly
underweight. Social Cultural and economic forces make women more likely to
contract HIV infection than men. Women are often less able to negotiate for
safer sex due to reasons such as their lower status, economic dependence and
fear of violence.
Adolescents in poor families often do not have the option to make real
choices about their sexual and reproductive lives, such as when and whom to
marry, whether and when to have children and how many to have, and whether
to use contraceptives. Women tend to marry very young: nearly two thirds of
adolescents in most girls marry before 18 years of age, and many even before
15 years, despite laws exclusion such early marriage
Women’s limited economic opportunity, and relative powerlessness, may force
them into sex work in order to survive with household financial disaster.
This exposes them to HIV infection and they in turn will transmit HIV to
their clients. In those areas girls are particularly vulnerable to HIV
infection, because of intergenerational sexual relationships, violence, and
limited access to information. In addition, discrimination and stigma
obstruct adolescent girls’ access to health services. Poverty causes
increased migration to look for work.
Mainly, poverty, and gender discrimination between women and men, are both
strongly linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS. Gender and age analysis shows the
ways in which women and girls of different ages are vulnerable to the
infection, and in require of support to allow the survivors to overcome the
financial and social effects of the epidemic.
Social powerlessness, poverty and economic dependence contribute to the
vulnerability. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has been fuelled by gender inequality.
Unequal power relations, sexual coercion and violence are a widespread
phenomenon faced by women of all age-groups, and have an array of negative
effects on female sexual, physical and mental health. HIV/AIDS infection
reveals the disastrous effects of discrimination against women on human
health, and on the socio-economic structure of society.
Usually, due to luck of education, employment opportunities are very far
from them. For girls face family and societal forces for early marriage and
childbearing. Early marriage and early childbearing are the norm in here.
In simple terms, life here is very difficult for majority of the people
especially the children who are sometimes forced to drop from school because
of lack of uniforms, school books, instructive materials and school
maintenance fees.
It’s my kind and humble request that you intervene to change the lives of
these children. They are the parents of tomorrow and if they have a firm
base they can bring their future children up well. Save their lives, bring
them out of poverty and sorrow.
I wish you God’s choicest blessings. I hope to hear from you. My Email
Address is aloismaingi@gmail.com
Thanks a great deal for your active participation in the lives of the needy
poor children of God.
Wishing you all the best in all your endeavors.
Sincerely,
Alois Murerwa Maingi
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I am ALois Murerwa Maingi, 27 years old and a Kenyan Citizen and single. I