22.09.2010
While most children in Middelburg don’t have the luxury of living in a safe home, hundreds of their lives are defined by the alcohol and drugs that are crippling this 44,000-person community.
It’s not just the parents who are abusing. Intoxication has become a family affair, with children as young as nine years old becoming addicted to alcohol, dagga and glue-sniffing. In fact, an estimated 400 kids here spend most of their young lives on the streets, doing drugs, drinking, committing petty crimes and assaults, according to conversations with locals, teachers and children’s home owners. Many have learned from their parents.
“Sometimes you go to shebeens and taverns and find the whole family there,” said a resident and board member of the Emmanuel Children’s Home where Daniel lives, who asked not to be named for fear of alienating his community members.
“The mother sitting there, the father and children would also be there and I would ask myself what they eat at that time. The kids grow up knowing that what is happening is the right thing whereas it is not a good thing at all.”
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032939
Substance abuse blamed for children’s woes
20.09.2010
Health-e News Service visited Middelburg, in the Eastern Cape, and saw how children suffer and are forced to fend for themselves as their parents live under the spell of alcohol abuse.
It’s in the middle of the day in Middelburg, in the Eastern Cape, long before school is out. Children of school-going age are roaming the dusty streets of the small town. If one didn’t know better they could easily pass off as street kids. They approach each car as it stops at the robot, begging for food or a coin. Their chapped lips and dry faces bear evidence of their hunger. They make their way to the Emmanuel Children’s Home where they will be given lunch.
After a short prayer the children dig into their meal - samp and freshly slaughtered meat. This is where many of the neglected children living in Middelburg go to get some food. The Emmaunel Children’s Home has been in existence for just over a year, providing food for many of these children.
According to the founder of the home, Carol Deysel, the children come from broken homes, where alcohol is the order of the day. Parents subsequently neglect their children.
“I would say the main thing in this town is poverty, which leads them to drink alcohol. Most of our kids here in the home are born with foetal alcohol syndrome. They can’t really progress at school as well. The little ones we have at the moment… they can’t talk and that’s all because of alcohol”, says Deysel.
The nearby townships, Lusaka and Midros, are also riddled with poverty. Unemployment is rife and so is the use of alcohol. Many of the children don’t attend school. They spend every day of their lives wandering the streets begging for food.
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032904
