Boys earn less than 1 cent a goat...

Here is an article written about two young boys who live in Nairobi, Kenya who work by chasing down goats and turning them in to slaughter houses who than pay them for less than one U.S cent for each goat they bring. Eight year old Boku and his five year old brother Mohammed, wake up each morning and chase down stray goats in the urban area known as Kiamaiko, Nairobi in hopes of being payed to buy food for dinner. Unfortunately, their father passed away and their mother's shop burnt down in a fire and she than became ill so at the tender age of eight and five, Boku and his brother have become the automatic bread winners for their family. As someone who works with up to sixty children each day who are the same age as Boku and Mohammed, I can not imagine a child doing hard labor such as that for less than a penny a day. Unfortunately, in Kiamaiko, Nairobi, child labor is all but uncommon and what makes matters worst is that police don't do much to try and stop the problem from occurring because employees of the slaughter houses pay off the police officers as well. When asked what Boku's biggest dreams were, all he asked for was to watch television and go to school to become a teacher, something that children in the United States have access too more than anything.




http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/15/kenya.child.labor/index.html

Measles Outbreak Kills 70 children

Measles is a highly contagious viral respiratory infection that causes high fever, skin rash, runny nose, watery eyes and cough. For 70 young children in Harare, Zimbabwe, and counting, measles has been contaminating them and eventually killing them. One main reason why they are dying at such a fast rate in such a short period of time is because their parents are refusing vaccinations due to their religious beliefs.Members of some apostolic sects in the country shun vaccinations and all other forms of Western medicine, saying it contradicts their belief in supernatural powers. Ironically in the United States and other developed countries, when you contract the measles, all you have to do is go to the doctor and get a prescription that will cure you in less than a week. Unfortunately, their decisions to deny these vaccinations is preventing their children from contracting the measles and dying. 


http://news.yahoo.com/world/africa

Abandoned Children in Zimbabwe

Life is getting better for citizens of Zimbabwe, with inflation under control, food back in the shops, and a power-sharing government under control. Unfortunately, these improvements have done nothing for the youth of Zimbabwe who are still being abandoned by their birth mothers due to inability to care for them. A local orphanage in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, now has to turn down children who are brought to their door due to over whelming amounts of homeless children ranging from ages two to eleven years of old. A 2009 census showed that there were more than 700 children living on the streets of Harare. Many mothers get pregnant from sleeping with men on the streets for money to pay for food, and once they give birth to the child they throw them in dumpsters, toilets, they leave them on sidewalks, in alleys, on front doorsteps, and even in bushes. Some mothers feel guilty about their choice so they try to put the baby out of it's misery by throwing stones at it until it is no longer alive. With the government now under control, many would expect for this growing issue to be addressed and taken care of, unfortunately that is not the case in Harare, Zimbabwe. These children are deliberately being left in the streets by their birth mothers with no one to care for them the way they should be. Some mothers are as young as the age of 14 (a baby having a baby) and by the age of 17 they already have had their second child on the streets. This issue is a growing problem and sickening to hear being that their are children involved because it is not the child's fault for being born.

The link to the article is below...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9005000/9005372.stm

Precursor to H.I.V. Was in Monkeys for Millennia

As we all know, AIDS is one the leading killers amongst United States and many other countries for that matter; especially Africa. AIDS has already claimed the lives of more than 20 million people. Something that is unbelievable and hard to wrap your mind around. This article shows that AIDS actually is not as new of a disease as we all thought. The virus has actually been present in apes and monkeys for at least 32,000 years and not just a few hundred years as we all thought. That means that human beings have been exposed to the deadly virus while trying to do hunt and butcher monkeys and apes for food. So everyone asks, "why don't monkeys become ill from the virus but humans do?" Being that the disease is so old, the host, which are the monkeys have become immune to the disease itself because it is so old. Something that is unfortunate because this virus has traveled to the human body and it can kill you in a matter of a couple of years depending on your immune system. AIDS as we all know is 100% preventable however, in rural countries like Nigeria, it's not as simple to prevent your self contracting the virus because of unsanitary conditions and lack of health care. As all of us do, I do hope that a cure for this powerful deadly disease is  found soon. Below is the link to the article, so that you can read the entire article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/health/17aids.html?pagewanted=1&ref=africa