Because I was unable to get in contact with my two
contact people across the country, I decided to do the alternative which was to go UNICEF’s website and read an article about poverty in
one country. According to the article, “Child poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and can be measured in many ways” (UNICEF.org, 2015). UNICEF has many on-going projects,
information, and tools related to child poverty measurement such as, “Monetary
and non-monetary approaches to child poverty, UNICEF-LIS collaboration mapping child poverty
in Middle Income Countries, Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA), Global
Study on Child Poverty and Disparities” (unicef.org, 2015).
I
decided to research poverty in Brazil. “More than half of the world’s poor are
children. Poor children are more likely to die from pneumonia, diarrhea,
malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS, which together with malnutrition are responsible
for more than half of the deaths of children under 5 globally” (Rasella, 2013).
The Bolsa Familia Program known as BFP was launched in 2003 in Brazil. It is
the largest CCT program, with a total of 13.9 million families enrolled in 2012
(Rasella, 2013). “The Programa Saúde da Família (The Family Health Program,
FHP) is another large-scale national program, implemented in Brazil over recent
years. They found that both BFP and FHP
coverage were associated with a significant reduction of under-5 mortality
rates: the Bolsa Famila (BFP) effect was greater when the program had a high
coverage (>32%) of the total population in a municipality, and all poor
eligible population was enrolled and remained in the programme for 4 years or
more.” (Rasella, 2013).
Based on my research, I learned that poor children are more likely to catch diseases and hard to fight off due to most families not being able to afford medical insurance. Today, more families are able to get insurance through the government which takes a heavy burden off them. They are more at ease knowing that their child are cared for and able to get treatment and medication.
http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Child_Povery_Insights_September_2013.pdf
This week's coursework and reading has been so intense and eye-opening for me. In all honesty, I have just had a pretty rosy life and the depth of suffering that is going on around the globe is quite staggering. Brazil seems like another country that is fighting to support it's families and children to get out of the cycle of poverty. It's great that they have been able to increase insurance coverage! As we have seen in this country, that is not easy to do! Thanks for your insights. -Lauren
ReplyDeleteAshley,
ReplyDeleteI too was unsuccessful in reaching international professionals. I also researched the UNICEF website and the information provided on poverty was astounding. Being a mother of two, it is difficult for me to fathom the idea of my children not having a warm place to sleep or a hot meal three times a day. To hear how disease affects the children is frightening. I hope through all of the developments by the UNICEF that they can come up with a solution to save these children.
Thank you for sharing!
Rebecca
Unfortunately, I did not here from my contacts as well. The statistics regarding poverty in Brazil are saddening. In my research, I found that about 44% of children in Ethiopia are underweight as well as their "wealthy" are considered poor by global standards. Like Brazil, many die from diseases and starvation. How heartbreaking :(
ReplyDelete